Neptune's Revenge
by cliff.west
Summary: What happens when the Battlestar Galactica from BSG 2003 finds another group of lost humans but these humans are from Rifts Earth? My first attempt at writing so buyer beware
1. Chapter 1

**Book 1**

 **Neptune's Revenge**

 **Prologue**

 **Unknown star system**

 **3 years after Rift transport**

Rex Gordon was propped up against the wet dark green bark of a tree, with thick broad leaves, and that had limbs on the top 20 percent of the massive living thing. He was waiting with his butt sitting in cold wet mud and odd shaped leaves. Most people would have said this was a bad thing, and would have had a list of problems doing this but not Rex. He was a wilderness scout by birth, raising, and temperament. He was trained in the arts of those skills required for this type of work. He loved this part of his job, and he had missed it for a long time. He just could think better without being around other people, but he could do this without risking his mission. This was because he could almost feel this surroundings, and know when it changed. Rex was almost invisible to anyone looking his way, when he was not moving. He was so good that with a little technology, even with those with aids to use. He was hard to see by them. The outer layer of his clothing was a ghillie suit that was made by his own hand, of materials that were around him in the natural world with a few items from home. The next layer was a woodland camouflage poncho. It was made of high tech plastics and fabrics that was supper strong. It would have turn aside any damage that might have been caused by any 20th Century man portable weapon made, without leaving a mark on the poncho. But the poncho was meant to fulfill two other functions on this mission. One, it was to help keep the person warm and dry on this wet and damp planet. The other task, was to protect the book sized computer he was carrying from the elements. He had been given the task to pass the computer on to a group that Rex was now waiting on for the last few days, and nights in these woods. The last layer was a set of Ultra 300 Huntsman's Choice a one peace combat jumpsuit. This would stop a man portable rail gun burst once, before it could reach the bearers skin under the jumpsuit. It a second burst came, it would be only so much tissue paper before it hit his softer body under its cloth. He could have brought along a set of heavier unpowered combat armor on this mission, if he had wanted to. But that would have interfered with his mission to sneak around, and avoid being found out by people and things. You know the ones that would not like that he was there and on his mission.

It was dark again now, as he waited form the group he had been told to contact. The quarry would not be coming out, now that the sun had gone down on this cold world. He was waiting for a wood cutting party from the band of refuges that had set up a shanty town nearby. They would not be able allowed to come out after the sun set on this cold world by there guards. It was so dark that you could not see your hand literally in front of your face below the green canopy. It was hard to explain how dark it was without a moon or stars to provide some light. To people who were used to living in a city with street lights and other reflected light. He was used to low light condition and liked it that way, even when he had a solid roof over his head. With the cover of the dark and damp air to control the spread of sound, he adjusted a bit more against the tree so that he was more comfortable

"What was this, the start of the third winter?" He thought to himself, as he made a slight adjustment to his body's position against the tree and mud. That would make it the 6th winter, since he had attached himself to the head master of the ship called "Neptune's Revenge". That had been when it had made a port call in Baton Rouge early one night. The ship had just completed towing in a Slaving ship, which had chosen the wrong target to capture this time. Then the catchers, had become the catchies very quickly. Rex needed to get out of town and they looked like the right kind of people to him. From what he could find out in the short amount of time he had, the head master of that ship would hire someone off the dock. They could work off the cost of the passage as a crewmember, but he was also known as a fair if hard man. Rex was on the run for the Coalition States, and they had a very long reach. They did not like it when one of their troopers made a run for it, or deserted, or AWOL as some would call it. They would hunt him down with dog boys, and anyone else that wanted a quick payday. When they caught him, they would make a very painful and public example out of him. He knew this, because he had seen it happen a dozen times in his young life already. They also would do it to anyone they caught helping the AWOL (absent without leave) Coalition solider.

Rex did not shake physically, but he did have to do a quick mental adjustment. So he looked up to the sky above him. He reason he had selected this particular spot to get some sleep, was that he could see the clouds threw the tree limbs and leaves over his head. The hole looked to have been made by a lighting strike maybe months ago. It was not much, but even this planet had to have clear skies some times. When it did clear, he like looking up into the strange colored night sky over his head. He then would let his mind go back in time. To a land a lot different than this one but not so long ago, that was an odd thing to get used to.

Rex Gordon had been your classic CS Trooper. If he was not the poster boy for the Coalition States Military, he was very close to that ideal. He had been a young kid from the deep and dark woods of south Illinois. He also believed with his whole heart, that Earth was for human's not dimensional beings or D-Bees and magic users. He would work very hard and put his very life on the line, so that they would leave his planet. If they left feet first, well that was okay with him. He had been assigned to a military outpost in the middle of nowhere middle Missouri, for his first assignment out of the CS training camp. His job had been to hunt down, and then report the location of any Magic users or D-Bees he found back to his home base. He had been good at his job, not great. Even he would admit that to himself, in no one else. All of that changed one day, when he was tracking something new in his area. The first that he knew something was wrong, was when an 11 foot tall winged Gargoyle drop out of a tree overhead and started ripping into his Dead Boy armor. It was grabbing and ripping off one part of his armor at a time with absurd ease. He was doing his best to defend himself, but he was way over matched and he knew it. He was about to die at the literal hands of this monster, and there was nothing he could do about but bleed, scream, and finally die. He was about to pass out and die, when he barely noticed a lightning bolt fly over his prostrated body. It had struck the monster on top of his down looking head right between the ears. Then the world went black and Rex was out of the battle, and out of time.

The next few days are still a mix of foggy dreams and flash of the people who helped him, still to this day. One face was centered in his mind more than any of the others. He thought she might be an angle to either take him to heaven or act as his guardian. He had heard about that happing before, to a couple of other troopers he had worked with before. The unknown local people were the ones who saved him, took care of him, and also healed him for several days before he came out of his dream state. He was horrified to find out that he had not been saved by humans as he had first thought, but by D-Bees. They were same type of beings that he had been hunting and killing for years now. They looked almost like humans, even up close but they were not human. They were a type of Elves, which had set up a primitive village in the deep woods generations ago. They just wanted to be left alone, but the Gargoyle had been causing enough trouble in the local area to cause them to act. That they had to use their magic skills to stop its rampaging and killing. That had been how they found him, with the monster ripping into him. He had not been strong enough to make his own way back to his base alone, so they let him stay and heal. The chief of the tribe along with most of the little village, was not happy having a CS trooped staying amongst them. But they also had rules about helping those in need, and those rules won out. The angel that had the thought had been in his dreams, turned out to be one of the Elf's by the name of Zrara. It was her home that he had been sleeping in, while he healed from the attack.

To pass the time while he healed, Rex worked on this damaged Dead Boy armor that the Elves had stored for him in an empty mud and wood hut. He would also spend time out in the woods, with the other Elves as they hunted. He was not a magic user, but he had weapons and the skills to use them. In this ruined world everyone was need to work, if the village was to survive any lean times. They would teach him more about the woods and how to move in them. They knew way more about the deep woods, than anyone he had ever met before in his life. And they were willing and able to pass some of those skills to him. They let him stay longer in their village than they had to, as he soaked up every bit of knowledge he could about being able to work in the deep woods. Every day he spent there in the village he fell deeper in love with Zrara. He was well into the second month, when word came to the little village from a D-Bee scout about him. It said that the CS had put a reward for any information related to Rex and what might have happen to him.

When Rx found out about this, from Zrara that evening. He arraigned to meet with the head man of the camp, and they made arrangements for him to leave the next night. Zrara would walk him out of their controlled area of the woods, to an area that Rex knew well enough on his own. This was so that he could find his own way home, and not risk her life if he was found early by the CS Military. Before they were about split up in the dark woods, Rex told Zrara what he felt to her. The feelings were reciprocated by her, very reciprocated. Very quickly plans were made, after a slight delay of two days of it being just the two of them in one tent alone in the woods. Rex made his way back to his base alone in body, but not in his mind. He gave a well rehearse story about the attack of the monster, but hid the fact that D-Bees had help him recover afterwards. He said that it had been a loose group of humans, which he had found after the attack. If he could have, he would had hid the fact that he needed help at all. But the damage to his Dead Boy suit was too extensive, to not have been hurt inside the armored skin. Zara been able to punch holes in several practice stories before working out this one.

After being debriefed for a few weeks straight, Rex was returned to light duty at his old post with a pat on the back and a fat bank account balance. Rex had developed a new operational plan that if his supervisor found out, would get him drawn and quartered and that was not a figure of speech. He would still report in D-Bees that he could find in the deep woods. It was only that now, he would make sure that they were threats to the peace or otherwise evil in nature. Instead of them just being "not from around here" and reported back to his base. If they were not evil, then he would just let them continue about their business none the wiser to him tracking them. He would be gone for months at a time, just like always once he was cleared for full duty again. That happened only two weeks after being sent back to his old unit. He was just doing his duty, but he was also was spending most of the time with the Elves and Zrara in particular. The two of them would travel the woodlands together, and report back to Rex's home base via a radio message. His outpost had no idea that he was not alone when he reported in. Most likely they would not have carried if he was working with someone human, he just never brought it up with his higher command.

Rex and Zrara were married eight months after Rex had been returned to full duty. Rex was spending more and more time away from his post after that event, which his command did not know about. He still had the highest number of contact that led to an engagements with D-Bees than any two other scouts in west side of the CS zone. In the CS Military, if you're very good at your job, then a lot of the times you can get away with being a little odd. That is as long as you produced at that level, and a wall would fall on you when your production went down. A lot of times it was a case of the CS command, giving then enough rope to hang themselves very good. His post commander even authorized him a Skycycle and the training to use it effectively. Rex had pitched it, so that he could stay out longer and travel farther. That along with a nice credit bonus was working out very nicely for the newlyweds. He was not as good on the cycle, as someone whose job it was just to use that type of cycle full time. But he was motivated to learn how to use it better every week. It would also let him spend more time with his wife in her village, using the evil looking thing. It would turn out later, that having that same cycle would cause him a great deal of pain in the near future.

He was laying besides Zrara in their shared home on a night, months later. As they were chatting, she as cast a spell of some kind that turned the roof clear. Now they could see the stars and moon above their bed. Rex had been using his improved access, and higher pay to get high tech gear to improve the whole village. He was taken care of his family first, so that this house was better equipped with modern convinces than his barracks room back on base. The other homes were not as well supplied, but that was improving as he made more bonuses. That was causing the "issue" tonight. He was directed, to check out a report of a mercenary group that might be using stolen Coalition States equipment. Zrara did not want him to do it and stay home. He reluctantly left the loving and warm arms of his love, to mount his cycle. He was off look for the unit in question, before the sun rose on the horizon. He would keep the image of her face in his mind as she waved, and watch him disappeared into the wood line. He was already planning or more like hopping, what they would do when he returned in a few weeks. He was thinking that this was just one of those "have to pay the bills" moments that other married couples he knew, talked about.

He had been out and starting on his third week of the search for the tech users, when he was recalled back to his home base. The unit in question, had crossed into another unit's area of responsibility. That area commander, did not want anyone else poaching on their hunting grounds so Rex was pulled back. The unit that could take out the maybe mercenary unit, and recapture the CS equipment would get a nice little cut of the bounty. That meant that the competition was not always friendly, and blue on blue were not unknown event for CS Army. Rex's newish commander, was his new commander because of one of those same said Blue on Blue events. Rex would not have looked forward to seeing his boss, if another one of those events happened so soon under her watch. Rex was also okay with this because, he could do a quick check in and resupply. Before going back out to scout "his area" that had not been check in some time because of his last mission. In other words he could go back to spend time with his hidden wife.

He dropped his Skycycle below tree level miles from his outpost, it was a fairly steep dive from 1000 feet to 10 feet off the ground. He was using a game trail, which made it very hard to be seen from the air ways above the tree tops. He stayed on it until he got to the place he was looking for. He used a special cloth, taken from CS stores to drape over and cover the grounded Skycycle. It was protection form any unwanted eyes, on both the ground level and above it. He made his way slowly to position that he could view the military outpost in secret, Zrara's training had help him identify. This was a habit that he had gotten into, when he started spending more time in the D-Bee village. He was pretty sure that if they found out about him, they would pick him up right after a returning mission. He was looking for any signs that he had been discovered, and they were going to take him down. He scanned the base looking for things, like more guards or more heavy weapons pulled out of the outpost armory. He had radioed in that he would be coming back to base with 24 hours. So they would know that he was inbound, and would be there soonish enough time for them to set up an ambush for him.

The base itself looked normal to his eyes, very few people were up and about at this time of the morning. All of the main heavy weapons, were in in the equipment pools. Except for the normal amount of Powered Armor or Robots on patrol around the woodland outpost. It was when he was watching one of the patrolling Robots, this time a UAR-1 Enforcers. When it walked by the main gate of the Outpost. A previous, as in predating Rex's assignment to the base, Outpost Commander had taken a liking to taking the heads of any "Enemy's to the State" they took down. He then would put, those heads on metal pole outside the gate. It had been carried on by the fallow on commanders, to this Outpost and maybe a few others. The poles would then line the road/path that led to the main gate of the base from the wood line.

There had been a major increase in the number of poles outside the gate, since the last time he had left this Outpost. His electronic binoculars played over the back of one of the pole mounted heads. It had slightly pointed ears, and he got a chill running down his spine. He ran the field glasses down the row of metal poles, starting at the gate and working closer to his location in the wood line. He almost dropped the expensive device, as he left his hide site. The walk back to the cycle was the longest walk he had ever done in his life. He had to keep forcing himself not to bolt into a full on sprint. It could draw attention, that he did not want right then. He had to use all the will power in his body to not just jump on the hotrod, and floor it to the crafts maximum speed it could produce. He need to get to the village that his wife called home. It would not have matter if he had red lined the engine. He just would have blown his cover story, and deep down in his bones he knew it. He just had to know for sure; maybe it was a different village of the same type of D-Bee.

The smoke and fire had cleared out a long time ago, so Rex had little warning of what he was going to see. Only a few of the flying carrion eaters were still hanging around. Rex landed is war wagon in the center of the decimated village. Bodies were everywhere, and it did not matter to the CS if you were a combatant are not. If you were a D-Bee, or a magic user, or were even close to one of these you were but the sword. Well maybe the Rail gun was more accurate than sword. The bodies had been left as they fell after being shot, just minus the heads. He found what he thought might have been Zrara's body lying in dirt next to a burnt out hut. It looked like she had died defending a group of the village younglings, and Rex could make out that she had not died alone. There were only two things that Rex could do now.

The first thing, was bury what was left of the bodies according to the rules he knew that Zrara peoples fallowed. He was cold inside as he moved first the dirt, and then the animal eaten remains. It took him three days and nights to dig the three dozen holes. One for each of the members of the village that had been his part-time home. After completing that task he went about the second task. He might have been a mundane when it came to magic, but he knew what plants to eat and which ones to avoid even before he met Zrara. He spent the rest of the day, and into the night without any rest collecting what he wanted from the dark places in the woods. There was not any safe way to get back to base after he finished the task. Traveling the wilds at night and alone was not the way to travel in this broken world. That is if one wanted to say alive so, he put his head down and tried to sleep next to his grounded CS Skycycle. Sleep did not come easily, and Rex could feel the ghost walking around him as he tried to rest stretched out on the dirt.

Early the next morning, even before the sun had fully risen above the eastern horizon. He left for the last time. The home that he had made with his loving wife, and her people in the wilds that had taken over the center of the continent. As he made his way back to the military base he reran the plan, he had come up with in his heads step by step. Most of it had already been done, even before Zrara and her people had been killed. He had a plan, that if he had been found out by CS Security to have been involved with the Elves. But it still needed some polishing work, to fill in all the needs he wanted the plan to cover now. As he had done those long days ago, Rex parked and hides the hover/jet cycle deep in the woods. He did not go to the over watch location of the outpost this time. He just walked out of the wood line out of sight of the CS military outpost. He made it down to the main road, and then turned to walk down the dirt road and headed towards the outpost main gate. He did not look up at the heads as he past them as they slowly moved in the breeze. He did not know if he could keep up the act. If he saw her face looking back at him with dead eyes, or empty sockets as he made his way down the road. The anger was building up at each skull and post shadow he passes walking to the massive gate that limited the entrance to the outpost.

He was challenged by the gate guards 50 feet from the entrance, but it took only a few minutes from him to be inside the camp after the challenge was accepted. When asked by the guard about his hover cycle ride? He just told them that it had been wrecked, due to a run in with a D-Bee monster three days ago on his way back to base. He had been around the block enough to know what D-Bees could do what. So he told him it had been a winged gargoyle that flew off, after the run in. He was told that he had to report to his commander about the "missing" cycle, as soon as he made it through the gate. She was not happy with the report, till Rex got to the part that it was only damaged. He had hoped to take a cargo truck back out to retrieve the damaged cycle, before it was found and maybe taken by someone else. This mollified the commander, and allowed for the next part of the plan to be put into action.

She changed the subject on Rex mid brief, and started bragging about the fun that Rex had missed while he had been out. That was when they had raided this dangerous D-Bee villages some distance away from the camp. If you took what the officer was saying for a facts, it would have seemed that the village was next in size and threat to the great city of Tolkeen. Not some little place of mud and wood huts just trying to live in a strange world they had been dumped onto. In fact the outpost had lost three CS soldiers and six dog soldiers killed and another ten wounded to varying degrees. He had to fight the urge not to reach across the office desk, and choke the little weasel of a woman to death with his bare hands. He had to keep his cool, and nod at the right spots as the commander prattle along. She was more interested in telling her story, instead of quizzing him about his. He wanted revenge, he needed to have revenge. And not only against this woman, but the entire group that had attacked his wife and her kin for no reason. It was some very good acting up to a point, when he thought he was finally about to blow. He was able to fake that he was tired, and needed some sleep in a nice clean and safe bed. The Commander seemed to be let down that she could not continue going down the list of what they had done to the village of D-Bees. It made since, and now she could smell the sweat and dirt on the man in front of her metal desk. So she relented, and let him leave the office so that he could take care of himself and protect her nose. She made a note to finish the story that she was very proud of, at a later date. When Rex left the Local Area commanders office, he had to take an even longer shower than he had planned to. He was trying to scrub off the skin crawling sensation, which he still felt after leaving the Outpost Commander's office. There was not enough hot water, or soap to do the job to his satisfaction. He had to be kicked out of the shower room by the towel guy, so the line could continue to the water head.

Over the next few days Rex went about his business, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. First change he made was not that big, but it was different for him. That was checking his military pay, and start withdrawing the funds so he could physically carry the money. When asked about the withdrawals. He made up a story that that he was planning a trip to the city, and he need it to buy the tickets and hotel rooms. It took a few trips to the cash window, one each day. That was because they could only give out so much cash, to each person each day. It was supposed to help fight the black market and any gambling. It did not work but was a regulation so it had to be fallowed. When he finally drained the accounts to the minimum amount needed to keep them open, if he closed the accounts it would draw attention. He had to leave some funds in them, just like if he was coming back to them. It was not much, no more than 25 credits in each of the three accounts he had in his name. 75 credits was a lot of money to a farm boy, but it had to be done.

Next change, was that he stopped by the bases water cisterns on one side of the camp early in morning, well before the sun came up. He also moved the cargo truck the commander released for him to use to the main gate of the camp. He was not coming back to this place, but he only packed down the things that had sentimental value or he might be able to sale later. Again he could not take everything, because than word would get around that he was acting strange. He loaded the items and tied them down in the cargo area, under some spare parts and tools he "might need" to fix his "damaged" flying machine. This was the last night he was going to be on the grounds of the organization, he no longer belonged to in his mind. This left him with the hardest thing to do, last. He just want to get it over with, but he had a plan and he had to stick to it if he wanted to live. He had to sneak into the office of the base commander during the night. He left a beautiful flowering plant that had never evolved on this earth. It was as deadly as it was pretty to look at, but very few people knew it. The room would be a toxic trap in a few hours, as the flower released its pollen in the enclosed room. The flower trap was waiting for the commander to start her work the next day.

Early the next morning Rex had a large hot meal at the Outpost only mess hall, but did not drink anything that came from the water systems. The camp was already dying, they just did not know it yet. Next he drew his new out of the box, old style Dead Boy body armor and weapons out of the armory. With one last check of the truck, what was called a PMCS for reasons he had no idea why, he was ready. Rex was out the main gate, before the rest of the place had finished the morning physical fitness hour. After making it to the woods and out of site of the camp, he stopped the truck in a clearing off to one side off the road. He quickly secured and hides the truck, and then walked back to where he had hidden the cycle. Not surprising it was still in place with only a few leaves moved since he had left in here. He flew it back to truck, then landed it in an empty part of the exposed flat cargo bed. He spent the next hour covering and tying down the warmachine. He kept at it unit he was happy that it was will hidden and secure. He drove all night, and not once did he look back behind him. It took him two days to make it to the Black Market shop he had worked with before on an off the books mission for the CS. He only slept for a few hours during those two days of driving. He sold the Skycyle, the parts, and the tools he had taken for cash, new identification papers, and more importantly information. With that all in hand he headed farther south in the now lighter cargo truck.

He used his cargo truck as cover and carried "stuff", as long as it was going in the direction he wanted to go. He would come and go with convoys, never sticking with one that long. He almost burned his cover when he made sure that they avoided the massive locked rift in old Saint Louis Gateway Arch. It also kept them away from the large CS military base there to counter anything coming through the gateway. It was a hard trip south, after all it was not like the golden or even 20th century with super highways or even halfway maintained paved roads, which used to spider web threw the area. When he made it toward southern part of the old state of Arkansas, he started to get nervous again. The CS state of El Dorado was the newest state in the Coalition, but it still had a very lager military base filled with Coalition State troopers. Rex was able to catch a cargo a convoy heading south from a medium sized town on the out skirts of Fort El Dorado by mere chance. He was now heading to the Gulf, to find a sea port that would help him hide from the long arm of the CS. If all else failed he would move down the coast to Huston town going cross country if he had to. That had been his original plan but he had not counting on how hard it would be avoiding the CS military. He just lucked out and hooked up with the perfect crew at his first stop on the sea coast. It might have been fate or something else at work. He did not care at the time and he put little thought into it. It just was the way it was, and he was happy with that.

Rex shook himself, and let the tears that those memories caused roll down his face. He shifted again and try to relax. He was now below the bushes cover rock pile next to the tall oak like trees. Now in a more horizontal position, he was as comfortable and also safe from anyone walking down the dirt road or walking in the woods to either side. You would have to step right on him, to know that he was there on task. That was if he made a noise after you stepped on him. In the dark you would likely just think your foot stumbled on a root or something. He turned on a small battery powered drying unit under his covering. It would use IR radiation to dry his cloths and the ground below him in a few seconds. When the built in sensor detected that the area was dry it would shut off the IR projector automatically. Then it would vent the excess humidity from between his layers of protection to the outside air. He had enough layers that his body heat would keep him warm, as if he was back in his regular bed once it was dry. If he got too cool in the night he could kick on a little heating unit that ran off rechargeable batteries to fix it. After setting his internal clock to wake him up before the sun rose. He went to sleep with loving thoughts, of his wife to take him into dream land. At least for a few hours, then who knew what he would dream about?


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **CHAPTER 1 First Steps**

 **Earth, Eastern Gulf of Mexico**

 **Dec 109 PA**

Captain "Kelly" Sweeny V looked around the bridge of his ship, as it cut through the white capped water greenish/blue water. The Neptune's Revenge was a massive ship just under 378 feet long, with a knife sharp bow above the water line. It was very good at cutting through the steady rolling waves of a storm tossed ocean. She also was the largest and most heavily armed ship, which did not belong to a formal navy of any kind, in these waters. She was the very life and blood for her master, just like she had been for his father before him. He looked back down at the electronic notepad in his hands, and went down the list of departments and signed off on each statues report. They had just left Houston Town a few hours ago, and now were in the open water of what had been known as the Gulf of Mexico worldwide before the Dark Age. The mainland was some distance out of sight off his port side, but the water below his hull was still shallow for an ocean. He was staying more closeish to shore than was normal for him and his ship. His ship was still going over the land that had been reclaimed by the ocean, with the coming of the Rifts to his planet. They were heading north and east for their next paying job, at a nice cursing speed of about 15 mph. He could have ordered his ship to go 10 or even 15 mph faster with easy, but that would have strained the newer or rusty crewmembers. The stopover at Houston Town had not been planned on at first. It was a safe port for part of their crew that would not be safe taking the next offered charter. Houston Town was run by a friendly D-Bee, which worked well with both humans and D-Bees.

The next job would put them to close for comfort to the CS Navy and ports not very friendly to certain people that had made up part of the ship's crew. The CS Navy in total had been reduced by over 25%, because of the Free Quebec war that ended not long ago. That however did not mean that they were not still out, and about on these waters hunting for D-Dees, magic users, and others they labeled as monsters. The CS Navy was focused on getting back up to full strength, and improve their level of training at the strategic level. The war loses meant that one in every four ships or crews were lost, or needed to be retrained, or replace in the whole fleet of that world power. That did not mean that they were toothless, by any means. What few ships and crews that were left in these Gulf waters, were very active searching and killing any magic user or D-Bees they could find. Some of it might be just to prove that they were still a force to be reckoned with, in the local waters. Captain Kelly was not going to risk his crew members on something with that high of a risk. Those who wanted off the ship, he made sure to let them off in a safeish port at least. He was going to miss the warfighting capability he was losing on this run, but if almost all of his magic users did not feel safe. Then it was the right thing to do, in his book. They had all said, that they would be waiting to sign up with him as soon as this charter was done. He was very sure of that, and he did not even need to have it in writing from them for later proof. He was well liked, and highly respected by other ships and crews for what he and his ship had done in these waters over the years.

That was the reason for the stop and resupply there. He would not risk the lives of the few D-Bees on his crew if the CS arrested them. He had trust in them and like every member of the crew they were like family to him. The magic user were easier to conceal from any prying eyes, so the ones who wanted to risk it could stay on board for this mission. That is if they wanted to and felt safe enough. His ship needed a crew of 400 to run effectively a few more would have been better, but he could make it work with that number. A little over 50 crewmembers had stayed behind at the last port call. They had been replaced with ten humans that had worked on his ship at least once before, and had a good reputation from then. They were welcomed back to the family, some would get off again before charter was done, but it would be only a few. Most would want to come back to this port to meet back up with their port side family. They also had picked up four more people who wanted to work for the passage back east, but they were not "crew". He was shorthanded but not by that great of margin, and he had one more stop to make before they would make the most dangerous part of the journey. He was not planning on attacking or taking any prizes on this trip. That would help a lot with his manpower planning. Also he did not have to maintain 100% manning on all shifts, but he was going to be as close as he could when he felt the heat was there. He would have to make up the manpower and skill difference at their next stop and if not? Then he would just have to make do with what he had, again. It would not be the first time he or his father had to do something like that.

With the reduction of the total naval forces in the area, it had seen a great increase in piracy and slavers activity. That was despite the Collation States Navy doing its show of force in the Gulf of Mexico. There also had been an increase of those same activities on the Atlantic Ocean side of the coast, but in even larger numbers. Golden Age Weaponsmiths had a base on the east coast, near the old town of Norfolk. The GAW had found an old golden age navy base nearby, and they had been able to salvage a dozen warships in the first few years already. They had already sold six Revenge class Destroyers, two Wasp Class Amphibious warfare ships, two Defiance class Ballistic Missile Submarines, and six Shark class attack submarines. What had made them the keeper of the keys for the world fleet, was the three 97,000 ton pre-rifts aircraft carriers they had already sold to the CS Navy. That was just that they had sold and now fielded by the CS Navy. Captain Kelly knew that they had sold more than that to other parties but those were only rumors. They had sold a laundry list of smaller items to anyone with a deep enough purse to buy them. They also had dozens of other projects that they were working still, but were not talking about openly. They now saw a need to reinforce the base, and started the planning of moving a convoy. It was to bring supplies and reinforcements to their controlled area on that coast. It was hopped that it would help to protect what they were working on. They also had a second reason for the convoy. It was that things looked to be getting hot all over the continent, and they wanted to spread things out some. It was just in case they lost control of some areas, no one wanted to have all of their eggs in one basket if they could help it.

The convoy would contain the six largest transports that GAW had at their disposal or could charter from people that they trusted. Each of the ships carried some weapons, which was common in this dangerous world for self-defense. But some of the ships carried more in the way of weapons than cargo capacity. Since the coming of the Rifts, everyone one had to carry some kind of weapon. That is if they wanted to live to see the next day, but you still needed sheep dogs in the world of wolves. The contract that the Neptune's captain had signed was extensive and expensive for GAW. She would be one of the escort's for the convoy to its destination, and then return with the now lighter cargo ships back to their home port. The total length of time of the charter was open but would be at least six months, but every month in addition to that Kelly would get a bonus. With the Neptune's Revenges reputation, Captain Kelly could command top price per day, and he did. Payment would be given fifty percent upfront to Captain Kelly. 30 percent would be paid, when the convoy successfully reached their planned unload point. The funds were being carried by one of the escorted ships. Which one would not be known to Kelly till they were ready to leave the GAW controlled port on the east coast when his payment would be handed over. The balance would be paid and any bonuses given when the empty ships had returned back to its base, up the main channel of the Mississippi River.

The convoy was not going to depart for a few more months, but it had been in the planning phase for a number of months already. Captain Kelly had used every trick in the book to get concessions from the weapons manufacturing power house. The first payment and some extra funds that Captain Kelly had in the bank, would pay for some needed dry-dock time for his love. Before the convoy was scheduled to depart. Her engines power plant still had almost two years' worth of charge on the nuclear batteries. But if he replaced them now? GAW would give him a credit on their old ones, to help pay for their replacements, and reset the 20 year life cycle. Next would be a complete replacement of the long ships armor belt. She had been repaired many time over the last few years, and paint hid the somewhat patchwork look of her thick armor hide. The patching had been expertly done, and was effective. But having so many hap hazard welds could make the armor slough off it was hit hard enough in battle, or in a strong enough storm. The Revenge was also getting an updated Air Search/Surface Search/Subsurface tacking and targeting system put in the CIC of the ship. This would almost put her at the same capabilities as the Sea King Cruiser as far as detection, tracking and fire control were concerned. All of this work would take a while, but that was why he was leaving now and not closer to the mission date. Captain Kelly had been told that the dry dock they were going to used would be able to compete all of this work on his ship, in less than 90 days. That was if he could make it on time to the waiting dry-dock. If not, then someone else would get his spot in the dry dock. A good dry dock was booked months out by ships in need of their services.

He and his crew would have to keep some of the new capabilities quiet. They did now want the CS to get any ideas, that they could put the ship to better use than its current owners could. It had happened before, even without the CS Navy being in a major rebuilding phase. This skill was old hat for most of the ship's crew, because the two twin heavy lasers turrets. They were more powerful than almost any other energy weapon known to be in use today. The two turrets were from what most people called "The Golden Age" and had been found with the ship as a built in weapon system. Whenever they had had been fired for testing in public, they were always at a lower power setting than it was capable putting out. Each turret commanders knew they had four different power settings, but only the highest power setting would be used on direct orders from the CIC. The turreted weapons had come threw to Rifts Earth with those settings, but no one knew it was a golden age setup or added later in the ships life. That would have been before the ship was found by Captain Kelly's father, Captain Kelly Sweeny the 4th.

Kelly spent the rest of the day taking care of checking on the division heads in person, to double check to make sure there were not any building issues. When the sun went down, he was back on the glass faced bridge. With the sun now down, Kelly was reviewing the latest update on the attack by a pair of Horned Demon Fish two days ago. The probably mated pair of monsters, had attacked one of the four submarines that the Revenge carried to act as armed scouts. The Horned Demon Fish were known to play with humans, like the way a cat will play with a mouse. So it did not kill the crew of the little submarine right of the bat. The fish wanted to give the crews time to know that they were going to die. That delay backfired this time with the selection of the wrong target. The little craft was able to alert the Revenge, and then the two ships worked together to draw the D-Bee to the larger ship and more heavily armed ship.

The demon fish were odd ducks, even for this world. They were animals but would attack for what seemed like the fun of it. They would even kill, not only that they would kill three and four things and then leave the item to rot on the waves. They could be made mad and for some reason when in that mode, they would not quit fighting till they died. Captain Kelly and his crew had fought them a dozen times already, so they knew how to deal with them. The only problems were that this pair had been the largest ever seen or have someone live to report, at about 150 feet long for each of them. It was also the first time they had seen to fight as a pair in coordinated attacks on a single target. It was not however that Kelly had not "heard" about them fighting as a pair. People of the sea like to talk and brag, but this will be the first time that there would be proof of the event after the fact.

The large ship and her crew had been able to draw the pair of monsters in and make them mad, very mad. The fight had not been all one-sided for the large hard hull ship. The port side of the ship had sprung a few leaks during the fighting. That had been after the pair of monsters, where able to make a full speed ramming attacks against her sides. The battle was over in little over an hour with both huge fish sinking to the mud and wreckage spotted sea bottom, about 100 feet below the hull of the modified warship. Kelly had sent a dozen power armor suites along with two of the least damaged submarines, to find the bodies after the attack. He had directed them to recover or take the heads of the fish off, and bring them back to the surface. One of the cranes would lift them out of the water and loaded them on to the deck of his ship. The CS had a standing reward system, if you could prove that you had taken out a monster you got some extra money. Kelly had a policy, not to do that on just any run or mission. But if you fired into his ship or hurt his people? You were a paycheck and he would collect on your dead carcass if he could. He signed the last report on the repairs. Then he Okayed the break out of bounces, to the crew that the rewards would bring into the ships coffers. He would only keep 10 percent of any rewards, and those funds would go to the operation budget of the ship. He would not get a penny of the money for his own personnel use.

 **Earth, GAW Dry Dock Mississippi**

 **Spring 110 PA**

The meeting room was large and made the sixteen people sitting in the crowd section, feel like they could bounce around like some lose lead BB's in a tin can. Each of the eight ships that would make up the convoy, had been asked to send two representatives to this the final meeting. It would be the last meeting, before the convoy was planned to leave the safety provided by heavily fortified port. Two men in very expensive suites, entered the room from the door in the back of the room and walked up to the front of the room. The older of the two men walked to the center front and the younger man, who maybe was the older man's assistant stayed off to one side. They younger man brought down the overhead lights some, and operated the display system. In a brief flash of off white light, a map of the planned convoy's route outlined in red was projected on the white wall of the room. The line ran from the mouth of the Big Muddy, along the coast cutting close around, and over what was left of the old state of Florida. It was keeping close to shore, to avoid what was now called the "Devils Sea". Then the red line went north, along the east coast of the continent. That is until it came to a stop, in the area just to the north of where the old state of North Carolina state line used to be.

The older man cleared his throat and started to speak to the group. "We are about to launch the largest convoy, in the terms of tonnage. That anyone has shipped at one time on any records we can find. We all know that ships moving along the coast routes are not the safest, but it's the only way to get the tonnage we need in the time frame we have I know that you, as ship command crews are more than aware. That we lose almost 40% of everything at leaves on or in a water hull. We cannot afford to lose 40 percent this time, so the idea is to send a strong convoy with an escort. The GAW Corporation needs to send reinforcements of weapons, supplies and support personnel to our base of operation on the east coast. Also loaded on your ships will be items ordered by those personnel, which has not be delivered yet by smaller ships or large aircraft. With the increase in the activities of Shemarrians, Splugorth and others, it was decided to risk a massive push at this time. Just in case of trouble along the way, the loads have been done is what is called a Combat loading plan. That way if one ship does not make it, all of one type of cargo will not be totally lost."

A murmur started in the crowd of ship officers nearest, the office monkey. No one like it when planners on a desk somewhere started talking about ships being sunk or lost. The senior briefer could feel it starting and worked to stop the discord before it could gain too much traction. "To make sure everyone is safe. Not even the individual ship's captain will not know what they are loaded down with. The ship's main safe on the "Luck Find" will have the only copy of the manifest for each ship. It will be on a onetime read-only disk, which will be turned over to the harbor master at the destination. To make sure you all make it there in one piece, we have assigned one escort warship to each cargo ship. I think you have seen them tied up to the piers." The older man looked around at each member of the group. "Now for the bad news, we have been working to hire a large Destroyer like vessel to be added to the convoy. Something like a James Bay class, or larger ship to act as the head of the escorts and convoy commander. Our efforts have not worked out as planned or hopped for. Our original plan had the Neptune's Revenge filling that roll, but someone higher in the company thought they could get another big gun to help escort." The older man stopped talking. What he had just covered had been rumored already. Now it was a fact, each ship's master was working the problem and deciding if it was worth the cost to back out the convoy at the last minute. There would be a massive fine for the breach of contract this late into the contract.

The briefer looked around the room, even though he knew that most of the audience was not giving him their full attention. "The GAW head office, contacted the head of the CS Navy and asked if they could provide a Sea King to be the big gun of the convoy. I was told that they would think about it, but they were tasked heavily right now. They might be able to have one there bigger ships swing by the convoy, when they are in the area. That is the best they can do at this time. The company thinks that it's a result of the data put out by the Dragon Plato and his people." He stopped talking again. The Dragon Plato, had put out a database and briefings form the start of the Dark Age. It was mostly about the evil, which almost won the battle for control of Earth all of those early years. The Dragon was also saying that they were back on Earth, and in force. Since Dec 21 of this year, the monster threats had gotten bigger and story's coming out of old Cuba area, was just this side of downright biblical. Now that was saying something to be coming for people how were used to seeing large and true monsters almost every day of their lives.

The briefer had to take more water from a glass at hand, because he had another shoe to drop on the group. "We cannot wait any longer, so we are launching this mission on schedule. From all intelligence we can find, we think next key date for the next round of major trouble is the 21 of June on the solstice. We want all the ships back to the homeport before that date. We also want to have the time to get everyone settled in, on the coast if things go more downhill. If something changes, and you may run into a large ship warship on the way. If that happens they will radio a code word to the both the Neptune and the Lucky Find by name. If they do not do that? Than they are most likely not going to be your friends, and you may act in any way to protect your ships. We have also picked up some reports that the Black Market boys, have found out about this mission. They might be working on a short notice intercept mission on you, and your ships. That is the official reason, we are not going to delay your departure." He old man looked around the room again, but this time he had a sly smile on his face. "Me, I never had been counting on being able to get an additional escort of any size in the first place. I will open the floor to any questions." He still had the sly smile on his face but he stood straighter, ready to take the onslaught. "Go ahead and get it off your chest, if you want to. I will be your punching bag for a while." The younger suit's head snapped up with the most shocked expression on his face, at his boss's last comment to the gathered group of officers.

For the next half hour the representative of Golden Age Weaponsmiths answered the questions, from the collection of ships officers one after another. Most of the questions were a variation on "why, they would not know what their ships were carrying". Every ship's captain had it ingrained into them. A ship's captain had to know exactly what was carried in the hull of the ship, that he or she was the master of. That was true, but in this case. The GAW people did not want anyone to let slip, to the wrong ears what was where and how much was being lifted out. It was just in case someone tried to make some money on the side and sell the information, or plain old go over to the other side trick. In the end, each of the ships senior officers agreed to this requirement, and they returned to the area where they were the master of their domain. It was now time to make the last minute changes that might be need to be done before, they were ready to start the next and first leg of this dangerous charter.

Early the next morning the Neptune's Revenge, the 600 foot long Lucky Find, two of the 250 ton Triton class warships, three freight haulers that each in the 17,000 ton Product Carrier class, and one heavily armed large trawler/escort vessel all left the port in the dark of night before the sun came up over the local trees. They started to make their way down the mighty Mississippi River, on the way to the open wave tossed waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a short trip to the mouth of the mighty river of only a few hours. Then they were in the open water of the Gulf, as the sun was now just bright enough to tell the difference between a white thread and black tread. This was day one and the start of when their lives were at risk.

"Sir, the sonar is reading 75 feet of clear water under the hull. We should be out in the Gulf proper, now. We also have indications that the first Thermocline developing." Stated the sonar crewmen in her high pitched voice of a late teenaged girl. She was well trained, and she had called out to the rest of the bridge without turning from her instruments display. Just as she had been trained to do over the year. Kelly did not need the systems operator, to tell him that they were in the Gulf. All of his years on the sea, told him that without the use of any technologies. He could feel the change in the waves as they moved against his ship. He could tell the difference in the water and the air above it. He was back in the deep waters of his world. This was his home, not the shallow ports on the coast like the one he had just left.

Deep below the metal hull, the water was about the height of a seven story building. The area should have been covered with trees over 30 feet tall at one time, but not now. They were buildings, cars, trains, ships and boats all stopped, frozen in time. This area would have been a very active place, a few hundred years ago. Now all that was buried under layers of mud, that first started to from after the tidal waves settled down after their surge to the "new" sea level. Now it was just fish and some plants growing on artificial reefs helped along by the larger buildings, which had not been knocked over by the huge tidal waves. Any fish or submarines that passed those reefs would never be able to tell what had been the reefs start points on the mud floor. In this day and age, they now were just a life support system for the animals, plants, ghost, and monsters that called the reef their home.

Captain Kelly tuned from the thick armored, but clear windows. "Comms, can you please have the shack contact the rest of the Convoy. Tell them all to increase speed to 20mph, and remind them to stick close to each other. Also pass along a reminder to them, that every ship is to be on 50 percent manning on all weapons and scanning systems. That is the minimum that they will be manned at. After that is sent. We will only use radio communication, if they see something. Please let me know, when every ship has confirmed receipt of that order and log it in the books for me." Kelly was now looking down at the plotting table, he did not need to look around to know that his orders would be carried out. He had a well-trained crew, with hundreds of hours of real world experience doing their jobs before today. That did not count the hours and months of training they had do.

The rest of the day was quite, as the ships stayed in a formation. With an armed ship between the cargo ships, and the open water of the gulf as they made their way east. The last ship in the convoy was an escort vessel. She was the armed trawler called the "I Cee U" for some reason, and she had been placed there for a reason. The ship used its long outrigger arms, once used to haul in fishing nets to put out long lines of hydrophones. Once in the water, they would listen to what was going on under the wave tops. She could pick up everything moving up to 20 miles in front of the first ships of the convoy, and up to 30 miles behind the odd little ship. The Neptune's Revenge, like most ships on this broken world was optimized for surface and air actions. The I Cee U was optimized to hunt what was larking below the water's surface. She carried the same weapon load out, as a Black Eel class ship did above the waterline. In the I Cee U, case it was below wave tops not on the top of the hull. She had two twin barreled pop-out turrets that carried a set of green/blue lasers, which did double duty as anti-torpedo defense weapon or an attack weapon. The real firepower though, was in a two dozen tube medium scale torpedo launcher, which also would pop out the bottom of the ship. The weapons mount had a 360 degree turntable and 100 degrees elevation, to cover any targets that might be around the little hunter. In Captain Kelly's opinion, it also did not hurt that maybe half the crew were water witches or mages to add a little extra in a firefight. Did he know for certain about the magic users? No, and he would not ask them if they were. It was a private matter between the crews and there ships master and none of his business. He did work with them before this convoy, and he would work with them whenever he could. Captain Kelly like working with other crews and ships, that were as professional as he and his crew were. He and his crew enjoyed working with them, but with the CS so close, Kelly hopped that if they were magic users on that little tub. Well, he just hoped they would keep a low profile if they did run into any CS Navy ships.

It was round midnight and under a cloudless half-moon night, when the water lights up with multiple flashes of bright light. Everyone could see the multi-hued light strobing, going off deep in the dark wave tossed water. This sent the little convoy on full alert with alarms blaring in metal and ceramic hulls. This sent everyone falling out of there racks, and rushing to man there battle stations on the different ships. Captain Kelly rushed on to the dark bridge lit only with screen glows, and a single red light center mounted on the metal roof.

Kelly bellowed as he enter the room with his unbutton shirt streaming behind the man. "Status report! Who fired?" It was his amazingly fast reflexes, which stopped the radio operator from rising the clear cover over a switch. This would have activated the short range radio. He did not have to physically touch anyone, he just used his outside voice on full volume. "Marko use the bloody lights! That's why they're out there for god's sake!"

The young crewmen exited the back of the deck house in a flash of arms and legs, and activated the shutter equipped lights mounted there. This was so that the ships could send messages, without anyone being able to use the radio transmissions to get a location on them every time they used a mic. Direction finding on a radio was old hat in Captain Kelly's business, so he had come up with ways to make it harder for the other teams to use it against him. Captain Kelly would have been shocked, to have learned it was an art developed over four centuries ago. It took about ten minutes, before Marko returned with a hand written message from the I Cee U's crew that had been using the same type of equipment to signal the Flagship.

"Sir. The sub hunter report that they had been tracking two underwater contacts for the last few hours. They were closing in on the convoy, from a generally westerly direction. When they were within five miles of the trawler, and still had not tried to raise anyone on the radio to let anyone know someone was around. The captain of the I Cee U thought, that they looked to be trying to sneak up us. Either they were going to attack us or be trailer on the convoy. He acted according to his rules of engagement."

Marko had to stop talking for a long second, and look down at his notes for the rest of the message he had written down. Captain Kelly was betting that those two contacts were going to trail the convoy, and report the convoy's exact location to larger ships or some other ambushers farther along the line of travel. They might have even launched a faint attack to help a larger force get into a better position.

Kelly waited till the younger seaman gathered his thoughts again. When he looked up, Kelly just nodded so that the young man could continue the briefing to the whole CIC. "The first warning the I Cee U gave the two submarines, was when the she fired four medium class torpedoes at each of them. He thinks that they might have been a pair of UB-300 class submarines. At this time he is not too sure what they might be and who might have sent them. That is all that they sent via wink light, sir."

Kelly nodded back at the younger man. "Thank you Marko, and please contact the I Cee U again. I want to thank them for their diligence and good work." Kelly tuned to look across the room and found the person he was looking for. "XO, please update the log book with this report and its relevant items."

Kelly was up now, so he went to his command area and reviewed the known data on the UB-300. The Medium class torpedo was fast and had a 40 mile range, this he already knew. It also had a larger warhead than its smaller cousin, and with a thicker armored shell to protect it from active counter measures. Having four of those tracking you at once, would have been some ugly business. Even if the little subs had been able to take out one or even two of the fast devices. The other two would have still crack the 20 ton subs outer hull, like an egg under a falling brick. He was doubting that the surprised subs would have been able even to get a report out about the attack, before they died under those hammer blows. Kelly noted in his personnel logs, up to eight people would not be coming home, and their families would never know the why or the how of their deaths. It was just bad luck they chose the wrong target this to fallow, time. The only notes of how they died would be in the log books of the I Cee U and the Revenge.

Meanwhile seven miles away to the east, and deep under the dark water hovering just a few feet above the mud bottom moving very slowly eastward. Someone else was watching the convoy, as it moved through the dark waters. They had no plans on attack this convoy, or any others like her. They were the New Navy after all, and would not do something like that. The 8,000 ton USS Barb was acting like a hole in the water, as it watched and recorded everything coming in threw its very high tech sensors. The commander was standing in the center of the massive submarine just forward of the conning tower, but below the massive turret mounted Ion cannon the sub surface killer mounted near its bow. The Commander was looking around the CIC of his ship with a wide eyed expression on his face, well wide eyed for him. He pulled at the cuffs of his old US Navy styled jacket out of habit, before asking a question. It was a question that more than one person in the ships CIC wanted to know right then.

"Well Wepos what happened? Me I think that "fishing vessels" is fishing for a lot bigger game than we thought a few hours ago." Asked the submarine's master to the person setting with a blank expression on her face. She was still working on the data displayed on her screens, which just had to be wrong somehow. The warships captain, knew he would not need to ask the question as second time. He would get as many facts as his crew could provide as soon as they could ferret them out.

The Weapons control officer hands stated flying across the console in a blur of motion for a few seconds, before she could even say a word. "I don't know sir, give me a second." Her fingers were flying on the touch screen, and the larger screen mounted over her head started to change into a moving waterfall like projections. The commander of the USS Barb had come up through the ranks as a weapons control officer. He could "read" and understand this display, almost as well as the current operation could.

The Weapons controller's right hand flew off the screen, and pushed the ear bud deeper into her ear canal. "That's it!" She blurted out and her hand went from ear to screen snake fast. She could feel that the commander was now standing behind her a step closer than before. "Sir, see this line. Something popped out of the fishing vessels bottom hull. I would bet that it was a weapons turret of some kind deploying. Here you can see eight different tracks coming form the hull. Those were the trops." Her hand was now running down one of the off color lines on the waterfall display. She was looking for any tell, tell signs that might be there, but she had somehow missed.

She leaned back in in her crash chair, and looked up at the larger display staring intently and started to talk to herself. "It was only deployed for a few seconds total. There's no way they could have gotten a targeting salutation computed that quickly." She stopped talking and turned in her chair to look at the Commander. "Sir, they must have been tracking them for some time, to get a shot off that quick at two different targets. She has to be a sub hunter of some kind, and since we did not pick up anything before she fired. She must be doing it on some kind of very powerful passive systems. It must be a system we have not seen before and not in the computer systems war books."

The Submarine Commander pulled at his left and right cuffs again. "I think your right LT. I bet since we have not seen this system on any Collation States Ship, Free Quebec, or the Germans for that matter. It might be a home built, or a one off system. I also noted that the output of those warheads were as good as ours. So I want to mark that ship in the threat library, as a threat and tech capability as good as ours is. We need to pass it along to any of our other vessels in the area, when we get the chance." He stopped talking for a few seconds, as he worded the problem from a different angle. "Helm come to full stop. Plotting, let the convoy get ten miles away from us. Then plot a parallel course to the Florida shoals."

Unknown to the little convoy of ships on the surface, the massive submarine stopped moving and drifted for a while. Then slowly it turned and the aft mounted pump jets started slowly push water again. The submerged warship moved away from the convoy to give it some space, and to protect one of the New Navy's twenty-six Trident class warships in operation. Captain Kelly would never know about the New Navy ship watching him. He had been contacted by the New Navy before, but he did not know it was them. The New Navy like to keep a low profile, and would only contact people, who were of a like mind to them. There were even two deep under cover New Navy personnel, on Kelly's crew on this very charter but they would never admit that to anyone. If they kept liking what they were seeing, the New Navy would not take long before full contact was made. The New Navy could always use another competent crewed warship, doing there bidding on this ravaged planet. That the ship would give them access to more intelligence, and supply support was just a three for one. That is if it worked out as well as Nemo2 hoped it would.

Captain Kelly was still on the bridge hours later, when a 25 foot long deep water, speed boat caught up to the bigger ship but also a slower vessel. It was a tricky job both for the small craft helmsmen, and dark silhouette passenger. Somehow one person transferred in the night from the small fast boat, to the larger ocean going ship. At night each of the large vessels would lower a metal ladder and small landing platform close to their hulls, so that if anyone needed to board they could. It was not that big of a security risk, because at the top of same ladder were a minimum of four people in heavy armored Robots ready to defend the narrow ladder on each of the ships.

It would have been too dangerous to try something like going from a larger ship to a smaller on in the dark of night. So the brave person would have to wait, till the sun rose again. Before they could make it back to their parent ship. Kelly was only willing to take so many risk and that was pushing it, so he had made it an SOP for the duration of the contract. The reason for the risk this time, was that the I Cee U command team, needed to brief the convoy commander about what had happened in greater detail than they could send over flashing lights. Captain Kelly watch as the young woman made her way up from the amidships area. That was where the VTOL and the two of min-subs Neptune's Revenge carried were stored above the water line. The stranger was coming towards back ladder on the deck house, like a person who had been on his ship before. Kelly went back inside of the CIC or bridge and waited for the visitor to arrive.

When she entered the now green lighted Bridge, red was only used when the ship was at battle stations. The Captain was waiting near the plotting table, in the center of the metal room. He looked over towards the woman, when the hatch was still closing behind her. "So what was with the fireworks back there?" Captain Kelly asked the woman, as he used a fist with his thumb out to point towards the aft of his ship.

The woman was a little taken back to be asked a question, before she could even get the hatch closed and "dogged" behind her. "Sir, the Captain was tacking a UB-300 mini sub, which we detected around night fall. It was an intermittent contact, till it was joined by a second mini sub of the same type. They both started to close on our convoy and looked to be closely working together."

Before she could continue with her rehearsed brief, Kelly jumped in, asking a question that had always bothered him every time he had worked with the I Cee U. "How did you know what type of underwater craft it might be, before you fired on it?"

The woman was taken a bit back by the question, but she was a pro and recovered quickly. "We were able to identify them as UB-300's, because of the radio they are built with. It stays on, so no matter what, with a backup battery. It has a unique harmonic at a certain frequency in a certain hertz range. That is what we can pick up from a good distance, on our equipment. Anyway they were closing on us as slowly and stealthily as they could be, but we had no problem tracking them. When they closed to five miles of our convoy. The Captain ordered our missile turret out and we fired two High Explosive warheaded and two Plasma warheaded torpedoes at each of the submarines. The Captain wanted to do this before they could get into range to fire the mini-torpedoes they can carry."

Kelly interrupted her brief for a second time, he was hiding a smile with a stone face. Normally if it had been his crew he would have just waited, but he did not want to let something laps. "If my memory is correct, the UB-300 carry a pair of medium torpedoes along with those mini ones. We all were in range of those weapons. I'm sorry to keep interrupting you, but do you know, how well your shot did? I promise I will keep any other questions to the end."

The women just smiled at him, like what a school teachers gives to a very slow student. "Sir, most crews don't carry them, because of the cost to replace them. Besides four torpedoes is not going to hurt the I Cee U that much. Even if we could not take some of them out, before they hit us. That is also why we practice snap shots with ours, so that we can get a big punch in first. Now from what we can tell, we got two solid hits on one sub and three on the other one. The one we scored the hat trick on seemed to have its hull cracked open, and sank to the bottom quickly. We think it was crushed by the water pressure before it reached the sea floor. The other one was able to surface for a few minutes and one person escape the hull. We know the pilot was hurt, because he took damage to his diving suit. Between the wounds and the bends, he was in pretty bad shape. He died before we could get any useful information from him. We were not able to pull up the damaged sub with the light crane, before it to sink back down below the sea surface. The Captain would like to transfer the body off our ship, to one of the larger cargo ship after sunrise. We don't have the room to store a dead body on our vessel and it not cause health issues."

The female sailor gave a shutter, and continued with her prepared points trying not to think about the body in her ship refrigerator next to their food. "My Captain thinks that maybe a better equipped base support, might be able to find something out from the body and body armor. My Captain also dropped the I Cee U back about ten more miles behind the convoy. He wanted to see if anyone else is back there, but out of range at our current location. If you send up a green flare, he will move back into position right now, if you do not agree to his move." The woman stopped talking and waited for the commander of the convoy to say something.

Captain Kelly was watching the woman as well as listening to the end of her report. This was the first time to see this particular member of the I Cee U crew. He liked what he was seeing so far. He gave the woman a slight smile, before letting her know what was going on in his mind. "I think the good ship's commander knows how to fight his ship, without me second guessing him. If he thinks this new position is good enough, then I also think it's good. Now, why don't you go down below and get some food and some shut eye, before you need to leave to go back to your ship. The egg beater can take you back to your ship at first light, and pick up the dead fish from you commander on the same trip. I would also like to ask, if you could pass along to your commander that he did a great job. I would like to run some training events with our four small undersea craft and his craft, while we wait for the cargo ships to unload in Norfolk."

The woman gave the older man a look, and cocked her head to one side, and then nodded in agreement before turning and leaving the bridge without saying another word. She had not expected the briefing to end that way. Not after Kelly had interrupted her so often. While she was getting some food, and of all things some Ice cream. She would come to the conclusion that this captain had been testing her from the very the start of her briefing/update. She would have to take some time to figure out if that was a good thing or not, but later she had ice cream to eat.

Captain Kelly needed a new third officer, and maybe he could steal her away from the other ship after this charter was complete. With that last thought Captain Kelly had as he rose from the command chair, and went to the small cabin just off the bridge. It held the small cot that was waiting for him to use for the next few hours. That is unless something else happened, while they 200 miles off the coast of the nearest land mass to his ship. It was the open sea, and you never could tell what might come up and latterly take a bite out of your ship at any second.


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Dawn off the Salt Mash that was over what had been the Florida pan handle in the Gulf of Mexico.**

 **Spring 110 PA**

The sun was just starting to clear the water field horizon, but it was already getting to be a warm day. The bugs were already massing for a second assault on the arms and legs of the single fisherman on the sandy bank. He was trying to feed his family some fish, and maybe catch a few more on the side to trade. That trade would be for things his family really could use to make there lives a little better. It was quiet and normal day, until the air was split with the sound of racing aircraft come towards him. The man looked up and counted and classify the dozens flying machines as they went over his head. They were led by six Coalition States Sky Cycles, followed by ten SAMAS fly power armors, then four Flying Titians, pared with two Terrain Hoppers and lastly eight different armed hover cycles flying close together. They all were heading south at about 60 mph, and they seemed to be looking for something. After checking the time, the fisherman reached for his medium ranged radio that was in a water tight chest next to his live fish box. Before he could finish punching the set of buttons on the device. A dozen Iron Heart 1E15AA Iron Eagle attack helicopters went screaming over his head skimming the saw grass. While he was watching the two sets of flying craft heading south. He saw off in the distance, on what had once been a levy of some kind eight Gray Falcon leap into the air on the VTOL jets. They also were heading south passing the two groups of flying machines like they were standing still. The fisherman gave a large rotten tooth smile, he was about to make a few extra credits without needed the fish. GAW's said they would pay him 300 CS credits for every confirmed sighting of armed craft heading south between a certain set of a few days. 300 credits was a huge payday for him and his family. That would hold them over for a few years in food, if they were smart about it. He went about punching the buttons as he had been told, then reported what he had seen to the person on the other end of the device. He had wondered why they had called him a coast watcher, when they had first approached him. Now he thought he might knew why. He could spend the rest of the day letting his mind wonder on what he was going to buy first, when the money came in.

The GAW convoy was on radio silence, but that did not mean that they were not picking up radio transmissions as they made the journey east. The Radio operator started writing on a pad of long yellow paper. The transmission had started with a code word that was listed on a three by five card, which was listed as being good today and today only. It was just a news story to who might be listening, but there was a hidden message in the transmission for the convoy. If they knew where to look. The fisherman was not the one reaching out to the convoy on the airwaves, but a repeater station manned by the people in the employ of Golden Age Weaponsmiths. Before the convoy had reached the open waters the communications operators had been given a list of code words by Captain Kelly. He had received them from the GAW representative at the port. It had come with directions to keep an ear out for the use of those words. After the operator had completely written down the transmissions. He took the raw data and ran a special decode software package on his fix mounted computer. This only took a few seconds before a computer printed out the results of the ten line report. The radio operator did not read the report, he just knew that he had to hand carry it to the Captain. He needed to do it quickly, and as fast as he could without drawing any attention from the rest of the crew while he did it. He passed the message sheet to the Captain and walked back to his station again. Het the same pace he had used to deliver sheet of off white paper. It made him feel all cloak and dagger.

Captain Kelly read the decoded message, then walked over to the plotting table that had the surface search and air search data was displayed on. The ship's master did some quick math in his head, then made a sour looking face. "Sound GQ. This is not a drill, use the flags and signal the rest of the convoy the same. I want them to forms a line formation with air action north. Let them know that Neptune is moving to Position Spike. Reinforce that they are to stick to the plan."

He turned from looking at the side mounted display and communications station, and towards the glass windowed front of the bridge/CIC. He used his command voice again. "Helm brings us to "all ahead full". He needed to take another breath before he could continue. "When we clear the Lucky Find, cut to course 016 till we reach Point Spike. Then resume a parallel course for the convoy, and go back to normally convoy speed." These simple set of orders sent almost 250 people running around the massive vessel, like a pack of three year olds on a mix of sugar and energy drinks. The huge aft mounted twin azipods that were both propulsion and rudder for the ship started turning faster and faster. They pushed more and more water aft, away from massive ship. The huge stern of the ship started to be pulled down deeper into the water by several inches, than over a foot, and it went lower for a few seconds. As the massive blades dug deeper and deeper into the blue green water, the water turned white around the front parts or the bow of the ship. The bow of the massive ship started to rise a few feet higher in the air, as the ship shifted in the water. She picked up speed closing faster and faster on the 32 mph that its master had ordered. It did not take long for the ship to have "the bone in her teeth". 32 MPH was the very top speed this ship was known to have made, and had done it more than once in its long life. If she had a lighter load, she might have been able to go little faster with her now clean bottom. On a command from the bridge, the metal coated azipods started to move on their massive mounting shafts that connected the devices to the wet hull of the warship. The knife sharp bow shifted from an east ward heading, to a more north ward point of view. While that was going on the other ships of the convoy were forming into a straight line of ships. All of them were still heading east at the same speed as they had been doing for a day now. The slight change of formation was the only indicator that something was up. The distance between the one ship and the rest convoy grew rapidly and soon they were out of sight of each other.

It was 45 minutes later at Point Spike, the massive ship turned sharply on its port side and adjust course once more. The turn had been so sharp that the ship, almost slide in the water. After it had settled in on its new/old course the speed was brought down to a more civilized amount. It was hopped that the attacking force would be closing in on the broadside of this one ship. This was where most of its weapons were unmasked, and available to engage any air and sea threat from that direction. Now it was just a waiting game, to see if the information was accurate or not. Captain Kelly was looking at the electronic plotting table. It showed all the information coming from all the different stations and systems from around the ship. It did not take long for new information stated to be displayed on the very edge of the screen. Captain Kelly was looking at the two groups of malignant red dots that loomed on the display like some kind of disease. It did not take long for it to look like they were, indeed closing on his position at a steady pace.

Winston was not happy at the moment or for the last few days as a matter of fact. He had owned the local Black Market boss a large bit of cash, but that had not been the worst part. That part was that he owned her a very large favor, that she had called it in three days ago. He knew that, he was in trouble when he had seen her number on his phone display. He was still kicking himself for connecting that line instead of just blowing it off. She was calling in the favor, and the money marker all in one shot. He had done his best but he could not get out of this task, without the Black Market taking his life as re-payment. So he had to agree to the terms, and just hope that the convoy would somehow miss being spotted by the Black Market informants. It had been yesterday when she had made the second call. This one was to tell him that the convoy had been spotted, and he had to fulfill his part of the deal. He had started to get that sinking feeling again, when his boys were joined by a second group of fighters that had been hiding at the water's edge. They were all heavy hitters being made up of eight fighter jets and a dozen heavily armed chopper as back up. It was in his experience, when your employer sent that much firepower as back up. Then you probably are going to need them and lot more on the side. He had not even known about them, until they were joined by that second group. He was not a happy mercenary, and he was betting that it was going to get worse before it got better. If he had known about this group of reinforcements he might have been able to come with a better plan, but he had not been brought into the loop about them.

Now he and dozens of his men were flying over the ocean with four hired guns provided by the same Black Market contact but under his command. Being followed by a group of heavy hitters. They had over flown him at first then drop back behind his forces. He had not felt this much like live bait in a long time. All he was supposed to do was attack a midsized convoy moving off the coast. No big deal just a few cargo ships and maybe one or two small escorting ships. He had done this type of work before on Lake Michigan, not problem. Shot some weapons at the escorts, scare the ship's crews to stopping, and then take over the command of all of the ships. It cuts down on the witnesses, when you did it that way. Now the problems started when he had been told that was not going to work. This time they were ordered just to single out one of the cargo ships, and take it over. He was told that it did not matter which one, just find one and do your job. After taking it over the cargo ship, he was to lead it to a port he was told about. Simple as could be, well that was the plan. "What was that old saying about plans made by men?" Winston was thinking as this radar picked up and displayed a return dead ahead of him.

Winston went back over the plan, he had briefed his troops before lifting off out of hiding. They were to land on the ship, even if they need to disable it first with weapons fire that was Okayed. Just as long as it could make it to port, somehow. He had very little information about his target and as a mercenary commander that was a recipe for disaster, he knew this. He had ordered only two of his units to use their built-in active systems, to try to find this target and guide the rest to the Promised Land. He had been told that "someone" would be trailing the targets, and radioing updated location and speed. That had even happened, right up till around midnight last night. Then the updates had stopped for unknown reasons, according to the report he had been given. That would only happened for only one reason that he could think of. And attacking an alert enemy could only raise this loses when it got nasty. All he needed to do was just flying on this course for another 30 minutes. He would then order a course change, so that they would be able to fly up the last known course and bearing of their target. That favor was really starting to weigh on his mind, as he hoped he had missed the target. Then one small red icon was showed up on his display that was right in his way.

Captain Kelly was looking at the plotted information, but looked up with a flash of motion. He had waited long enough, and the nearest group was now less than ten miles from his ship. There now was no doubt that they were heading for the convoy. He gave and evil smile, his ship was about to become more than a small radar reflection on these guys radar. All they needed to do was keep coming at him, just like they were. He and his crew would take care of the rest.

"Pass updated targeting information to the guns, start bring out the Power Armor and Manned Robots. They are to take up there assigned support positions on the main deck. I want the VTOL and the SAMAS suites ready to launch. When they report that they are ready. Then light up the ANSPY and activate the video's system to include all of the data recorders." Kelly could have been reading off a note card, the delivery was so rehearsed. Those same command were used, every time someone attacked his ship, and this was what they would do.

He looked around the bridge, but he did not need to comment on anything else. They were starting to move even as he was speaking. He gave himself a nod to the training, he had forced onto them before finishing his orders. "They can start shooting, when any weapon turret boss has a target lined up. I want the heavy weapons to first hit the second and farther group. Plotting there may be some Coalition States equipment out there, so keep tracks on them and where they fall. I want to know where they go down at. I want be able to send recovery teams out afterwards with least time courses." The CS was known to be willing to pay a nice bit of reward money, if anyone can prove that they took out some of their equipment from unwanted hands. They would even pay up, if someone had pulled there misplace equipment from the bottom of an ocean after a battle, like say a Dead Pool or something like that. The CS military would not even mind that much that they had been the ones to have blown some holes in it in the first place. It was a dangerous mission to claim the reward, because some CS commanders would shoot you and claim both rewards for themselves. If selling them proved to be taking too long? There was always of fall back plan of selling the wrecks on the open market, or even Captain Kelly's crew could strip them for useable parts. He would have many options. That is, after he defeated these people in combat. Kelly waited till his crew was ready, then he would drop the big hammer on them.

One second Winston was flying along with no problems, the next second he was receiving enough radar energy to make sure he would never have kids again. Then the silver blur of rail gun rounds followed. Those blurs were quickly followed by the smoking trails of missile impacted into his small command. Now he knew were the target was, and he gave the simple order to the other units "Rush". It was a mad house in the air close to the water, as the on rushing weapons of war moved toward their difficult targets. The radio waves were active with screams and grunts and then sometimes by the sudden cutting off, as someone lost the ability to breathe forever. Modern warmachines are very tough, and very rarely can they be brought down with a single strike. But it could and did happen every now and then. That is, if someone on the other side was using big enough hammers, and it look like this "cargo ship" had a lot of big hammers throwing his way. His radar went off trying to alert him of a change. Smaller returns were separation from the larger return. That could only mean that he was about to have company. The up-close and personnel kind of company, which could collect your scalp if you were not carful.

The on rushing wave of manned weapons was supported from a wall of destruction coming from their ship behind them. The Long ranged missile with massive warheads, which also were super-fast and were the quick killers. These flying telephone poles were not alone as medium sized missile, short ranged missiles, and different sized rail guns rounds struck home guided by the powerful system mounted on the large ship. It was like they could not miss the attacking craft. The Eight Grey Falcons were plucked out of the sky in the first few seconds of battle, before they could deploy their own heavy weapons in support. The Iron Eagle helicopters were next, but the time the dying fighters were able to buy was well used. Soon eight medium class missiles with a verity of warheads, were leaving each of the dozen low flying helicopters. After some evasion maneuvers, the attack forces were soon closing in on the large radar contact to their front. The attack had happened so fast that the helicopter had not targeted the smaller and easier to kill craft headed there way. That might have bought them a whole 45 more seconds of life, as they tried to push in to make it to the one mile limit of the 48 mini missiles packed into each of the twin crewed craft. The Neptune's Revenge was specially outfitted to fight this kind of fight. Her single mounted Ion cannons manned by EBA suited personnel, toke out the medium sized missile weapons that made it close to the ship with ease. They were waiting for more targets to enter there range and it did not matter if they were man or unmanned targets.

With the fast movers now out of the picture, Kelly launched his reserved force for the up-close battle, from what used to be the forward cargo hold. With a press of a button it started things launching on pillars of fire and steam. First out of the metal box were ten Triax built X-10A Predator flying suits. They were quickly followed by waves of Bandito built and sold SideWinder SAMAS and Wild Weasel SAMAS flying suites. Captain Kelly watched each one suites took off from the forward holding area. Each cost between four and five million credits. It had taken him years, of very hard work to get all that firepower together. He did not like to use those machines, they looked too much like the Coalition States equipment, and CS would not be happy seeing that many of them all in one place. Much less when they found out they all were under the command of one person, him. They were the only very heavy weapons on the market, when he needed them. So he bought them just like everyone else did. The Black Market dealer had even given him a break in price, due the volume sale. Now that he had enough flying suites, he was starting to replace them with Northern Gun or Traix made items, but they cost a lot more per suite. They were worth the money, but he had to be careful where he spent his capital these days. He could have used any VTOL as his ranged attackers, but suites took up a tenth of the space for the same amount of firepower. Kelly gave a smile as the last suit left the converted cargo hold on a pillar of smoke. Now the numbers of flying objects were even on each side. The attacking force was now going to lose this battle. They just did not know it yet.

Winston in his Black Market built SAMASs suit, was the last of the living from the mixed bag of attackers. He was able to land on the moving hull of the half cargo ship, half warship thing that had killed the rest of his friends by a mix of luck and skill. He had been able to blast an enemy Flying Titan, knocking it out of the air and dropped to the waves below as he closed. With the huge battle winding down on over his head, he was able to skim the ocean surface the rest of the way to the target. He watched as one by one his teammates fell from the sky. He had never been in a fight against anything like this ship. Most of the missiles his group of fighters used, had not struck home on the ships. It seemed to have been armed with some sort of Ion weapons systems forward and aft. It would fire into the missile swarms and damaging or destroying most of them, before they could strike the ship or even get close. It just was not fare. He was the pirate, he should have the advantage over some a mere cargo ship. He put some power to his leg and back mounted jets. He went up the side of the great ship, and came to rest on her main deck with a crash of metal on metal.

Winston did not live long enough to try to figure out what had gone wrong with his plans. This was because the massive form of a Northern Gun built Hunter Mobile Gun system, stepped out from the cover provided by a medium ranged box missile launcher. The launcher looked like it could have been used on the James's Bay class ship a few years ago. The massive turret on the Northern Gun built suit, which would have been a head if it had been a living thing turned to face him. The turret fired its NG-H155 Howitzer rail gun point blank into the chest of the Pirate crewed warmachine. The burst of 40 rounds flew straightish and struck the enemy piloted machine. A few of the rounds of the burst, found a weak point in the already damaged armor. The very hard and fast darts, pushed their way in to damage the soft thing inside the hard outer case of armor. Winston the mercenary, died so fast that the pain of the wounds did not reach his brain. Before he ran out of blood to keep his brain alive. It did not take a second burst, before the suit collapsed into a blood, and machine fluid pool, and pile on the old ship's deck. The battle was over and the convoy was safe, for now.

Captain Kelly was watching from the port bridge wing, looking aft when the last enemy machine landed on the deck of his ship. He was just about to order his reserve force of fighting machines to come out of hiding, and join the attack. He stopped from giving the signal, when he saw one of his pilots bring his massive warmachine around a weapons turret that hid it from view. All he had to do was see the bigger machine fire first, to know that his fight was over. He heard the sound of the massive rail going off, even threw the hearing protection provided by the helmet. It arrived at the same time as the flash was seen by his eyes.

Kelly pulled the microphone down from the side of his helmet to his lips. He activated the device, so that his crew on the ships bridge could hear him. "Well that's it people. We stopped them all. Helm, tell the engine room to come too "full stop" please. Let Damage Control know that they can start repairs, and I want a report on all damages as soon as possible. Let the boat launching crews know to launch both Sea Bats. Plotting let the Sea Bats know were those CS birds went into the water first. After we find them, we can try to pull up the other stuff. What's the water depth around here? Also break radio silence, and let the rest of the convoy know we stopped this attack. We need to call back to the nearest GAW station and tell them the same. Good job people, now let's clean up." He stopped talking for a second, before finishing his list of orders. "Helicopter crew, it's time to earn your money and go SAR our people out of ht water." Captain Kelly cut the feed to the pickup.

The woman standing at the plotting table looked at her map, then looked at a read out next to the electronic table. "Sir, we have just under 90 feet of water under the hull right now, not counting the wave action on the hull. There might be a storm to the south of us, it has kicked up waves some over the last hour. They are now running about ten feet at crest." The female voice came through the speakers built in to Kelly's helmet to answerer his question. This was while he was still outside the metal room that was his ships command center. He needed some fresh air on his face, to help dry the sweat that had been beading up on his face while his faceplate had been down.

Kelly did not have to re-enter the bridge to reply. "Good they will have plenty of light down there to work. Comms, I don't see any advantage in and trying to keep a low profile out here any longer. Contact the GAW base again and update them with a full report on what has happened and our damage. Also authorize any payment to my friends, who was so kind to let us know about the attack. I don't know whose idea it was to have those coast watchers out there, but it paid off. It might we worth it to keep them on the pay roll for other cargo runs." He gave himself a smile, the coast watcher did not know that Kelly was kicking in a payment. 5,000 credits would be a nice surprise to whenever gave the alert. That is once they got somewhere there was an electronic bank to access. Kelly had pushed for that surprise bounce, and not to tell the watchers about it. It was life changing money in this part of the world, and it would make anyone who received very happy.

Captain Kelly had only scheduled to be stopped for an hour for recovery. That was 60 minutes not 61 minutes, before he was applying power to the props again. The ship started moving as the center aft crane was lifting the last Sea Bat clear of the water. The forward crane still had what was left of a CS Sky Cycle hanging over the open water, and the aft most crane was just lowering an armored hover cycle on to the deck. All of the salvage still needed to be inspected, before it was taken below to be stripped of parts, or repaired for crews use, or held for turning over to the CS. They had over a dozen identifiable wrecks and a large number of "hulks" that they had pulled off the sandy ocean bottom, despite the Captains limited time for recovery. The Neptune was short on full mission capable flying machines after the battle, and they were going to need all those parts soon.

Captain Kelly was watching the cranes work on his ship, when his acting second in command Joe Kittinger come up to him as his ship started to pick up speed. As the ship started moving through the water, it caused freshening breeze to move across the bridge wing. Joe brought up a cup of his captains favorite hot simulant drink. As he handed the steaming cup to the other man he had to let him know something. "Sir, if we only had waited another hour or so, we could have pulled more of those wrecked machines off the sandy bottom. They are just going to settle in deeper into the mud, making them harder to find later. Even if we just pulled one more hulk, and stripped them for spare parts. The money could have been worth the time and effort."

Kelly sipped his drink savored the taste, and nodded his head in agreement to his second in command or XO. "I know Joe, but this is the only the first move of a long game. XO, we are the big guns of our little fleet. What if this was just an attack to draw us away from the rest of the convoy? It could be for someone else to attack the convoy and take the cargos while we are somewhere else?"

Kelly looked over at his second in command and he could see that the other man had not thought that far ahead. Kelly let him stew for a few seconds before changing the subject. "What's the butcher bill to today?"

Joe handed the Captain a slip of paper, but he recited the highlights or lowlights depending on your outlook from memory. "We have six dead and another dozen wounded, all will be or should be returned to duty by the end of the week. We were able to recover four of the bodies of our dead, but not the other two. We just could not find in the time we had. We pulled one live pirate out of the water but he's hurt bad, and the doc does not think he will last too much longer. All of our wounded look like they will make it, baring someone taking a bad turn in the next few hours."

Captain Kelly unfolded the single sheet of paper, and looked at the names and a more detailed break-out of the wounded and there status. "Thanks Joe, I'll get to working on the letters to loved ones. Have the Purser make the compensation drafts ready to send, as soon as we reach the relay point. I will have the letter done by then."

Each member of the crew had signed a contract to be on the ship. With the coming of the Rifts, having a life insurance policy, was something that was just not available. Kelly's family had seen to many other families shattered, when the only money maker was lost. The senior Kelly Sweeny had done something about that, and was carried on by his now grandson. It was that each person had an account set up with a years' worth of pay put in it. When word was sent by a certain few crewmembers in a leadership role, the money would be sent to the next of ken listed on the contract. It was not much but it was better than even the CS did for their troopers, who died in battle or accidents.

Captain Kelly looked at the other man, and felt like he needed to pass along something else he had planned on doing. He deserved to know what his Captain was thinking. He kept eye contact with the XO as he brought this XO up to speed. "Plotting has the locations marked and recorded within 150 feet or so on each of the crash sites. When we come back this way in a month or two, we can take the time and look for them then and recover what we can. I also had the underwater guys place passive markers near any large peace that they found, but we did not have time to recover. They won't sound off till we ping them on just the right frequencies. That should cut down the time re-finding a lot of the items we left behind. If we don't have time then, well there is always time after this contract is over and before he head back to Huston town. Then we won't have to cut in our employers in any profit from the sales of what we find, and it all would all be nice and legal." He gave the other man a wink. Then his face went death white, as a thought flashed threw his brain.

"Mr. Kittinger, the longer I'm thinking about it. The more I started to think, if a merc unit could be hired and those min subs all were moved to intercept us? Then maybe the Black Market might know more about us, than we thought at first. If they do? Then how long do you think it will take for the Slavers to find out that a few thousands human, are on the high seas trying to move to a new home?" He looked at the other man closely to see if he was connecting all of the dots.

When Joe had not replied to his question, Kelly finished his thoughts. "Joe the longer we are away from the rest of the fleet, the higher the chance someone might take advantage of it. What do think if I told you that this little attack?" He wave his hand to point to the three crane crews still working on securing there loads of wrecked warmachines." Was only a diversion for the slavers? I don't think so. But it's a 50/50 shot in my mind's eye, and it just popped into my head."

Joe Kittinger looked at the other man. Joe knew he was not the smartest man in the world, but he would go till he dropped. That was not what a ship needed in a Captain, but he was learning. The crew would fallow Joe, because they knew that what he told them to do. He would and could do it because he had the skills, and he was fearless as they came in public. That is, if something happened to the Old Man. It also would only last until they made safe port, and a new Captain could be appointed. Well fearless was not exactly right, but would do what needed to be done. He also was knows how to voice any questions when the time was right or safe to do so.

"Sir, that is a bit of a stretch. That." He pointed out towards the east and the rapidly retreating battlefield on the sea. "Was what? A hundred million credits in weapons alone? I sure those things in Atlantis could paid that much, but it would not be subtle in action. We know they like subtle games, but it would fit the puppet master part they like to play." Joe stopped talking abruptly and was lost in thought for a second. Then turned around and started going down a set of rust proof stairs. Over one shoulder he half turned as he walked. "Sir, I think I'm going to talk to the engine room chief, and see if we can't go to 110 or better power output on the pile for an hour or three."

Kelly smiled and watched his XO disappear into the bowels of his ship. "He was a good man." The thought to himself, before he too went inside to his day cabin office. He would write the condolence letters to families of his dead crewmembers. Everything else was already being worked on by his crews, so he had some "free" time.

 **Dawn a few days later off the East coast of the Dinosaur swamp old Florida and Georgia in the Atlantic Ocean**

Captain Kelly used his hand held electronic scanning binoculars, and was studying the mass of storm clouds that seemed to closing on them oddly fast. He was so intent on the clouds, that he did not hear someone walk up behind him. He almost jumped a little, almost that is, when a voice was almost in his hip pocket broke his concentration.

"Sir, Is something wrong?" Asked the ships XO coming up behind the Captain, looking out the thick armored glass of the bridge. He had been in the Bridge/CIC of the ship, when he saw his boss studying something in the sky for a long bit of time. That was longer than normal for his captain to do. When the Captain did something odd, it was a good idea for Joe to find out why.

Captain Kelly lowered the device, and looked towards his second in command. "Yea Joe, I'm always concerned when thick storm clouds." He pointed at the mass of clouds, he had been observing for about half an hour. "Move against the wind." His head went back to looking at the gray and black mass of cotton clouds.

Kelly was thinking and not looking at his XO as he continued to think aloud. "When you add that to how close we are to the Devil Sea. Now add to it that, we are pinned in between the land and the Devil Sea. This is a great place to set an ambush don't you think Joe?"

Now Kelly turned back to look at his XO levelly in the eyes. "I want you to contact the I Cee U with the flashing lights, and have her drop back some. Let them know that I think someone or something's are coming up behind us. They would have the best chance to pick them up, without us giving our selves away in the process." When Joe did not jump to start on the orders he had been given the Captain relent. "Joe, I think that maybe a Horune Dream Ship is out there somewhere. My money is that they are behind us, but off to the east somewhere. I need more information, so I know which way to move the convoy."

That was the way to get Joe's full attention. That tends to happen with the idea of a 90,000-ton warship, which used a mix of super high technology and magic to fight anyone on the oceans. It was the flagship of a D-Bee slaverer race, and they never sailed the ocean alone. Joe tapped his officer cap's bill and went back to the flag arms, to do as his friend had asked him to do. Thinking about a death like that tended to get you moving quickly, or pee your pants. Sometimes both of these things happened, it was a very scary world.

A few hours later Captain Kelly sat next to the plotting table, and waited for the visiting officers to come to the meeting he had called. Every ship in the convoy would be sending at least one officer over for this meeting. Most likely it would be the Captain, from each of the ships in the convoy. This current meeting had not been planned for, but each of the ships had a VTOL to shift VIPS around quickly in an emergency. While Kelly waited. He was re-read the notes in his hands, and tried to come up with a plan to get at least some them out of this alive. So far, it was not working at all. Maybe having fresh set of eyes of his fellow Captains, would be able to find something he missed. "Oh please god, let them find something I missed."

After everyone had taken a seat, but Captain Kelly. He knew he had to start, and at least let them know the facts they had collected so far. He put both of his hands flat on the metal topped desk and leaned a little forward. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice. It would seem that our employers over at GAW, should have pushed to get more escorts after all. Maybe they should have postponed this mission a while, or they could have canceled it all together. As some you no doubt noticed, I had the I Cee U drop back out of the convoy. I want to see if anyone was trying to come up on us from behind and under the cover of those storm clouds. From this new position, they were able to detected enemy ships closing on us." On queue with a slight nod, one of Kelly's staff added the red shapes of enemy ships to the plotting table that the other captains could see. The look of shock and fear went around the table at light speed, but not a word was said in the confined space. They were waiting like good professionals they were, to see what else was going on.

"This is only what we know about, but there could be more out there we have not seen yet." Now he had the group's attention. "We know that a Kittanin made MK 4 War Shark is here." Kelly put a mark on the table, then reached for another marker. "There are two Horune Strike Ships here. I had thought they might have been Dream ships class vessel, but the I Cee U says that they just have a strong ocean wizard on one of the ships. So we might have been a little luckily on that draw." He reached from more markers, and he heard a slight groan come from one of the other captains. With the red dots now showing what they were against and where they were in relation to each other. It was obvious they were in trouble, deep trouble.

Kelly looked around the group, this was very bad news he was about to add to the map. "They also picked up two Splugorth Sea Fins underwater in about this location." All but one of the ships he had identified, were well south of them. The MK 4 on the other hand was between them and the nearest bit of protecting shoreline. "We don't know if they are working together or not, but at this point I would not bet against it. It's too much of a coincidence for them to all be here, and only separated by a few dozen miles or so. The ocean is too big of a place for them, all too just happen to be here and all at the same time." Kelly looked around the table trying to get a feel of what might be going on in their heads. If any one of those ships showing up on their plotting table or radar? It would have caused most of these Captains to run for the nearest large port, as fast as there hulls could carry them and their crews. To have five show up at once, would have caused hearts to stop and yellow to flow and pool onto the metal decks.

The Captain of the transport vessel "Sand Box" was looking around the plotting table and not liking what he was seeing on the other faces. He took a few deep breaths trying to calm himself, before he opened his mouth. "Okay Captain Kelly, you're the convoy and escort commander. So what are we going to do now?"

Captain Kelly could tell they are were all scared, and that was including the commanders of the escort vessels. He could not blame them in his heart, he was scared also. Every one of them had heard about those types of heavy vessels before. One or two of them, had even seen one or two of them in real life. The Neptune had first made a name for herself because she had defeated a Fin Back, and brought the remains back to port to prove that they had taken one out. That little bit of work had made widespread press back in 90 PA. That had been the first time they had been able to prove that they could do it. This was different, they were out gunned and out massed in every way that anyone wanted to think about or measure. Kelly decided standing was the wrong option and not only sat in his chair. He leaned back in it, and looked at the metal ceiling and let his mind relax.

Kelly let some side bar conversations develop on their own, but he could tell that nothing earth shattering was going to be found. He gave a slight head shake. It was going to have to be his plan, and that one he knew sucked. The little head shake was enough for the talking to stop and people to look back at him. "Our current speed is 18 mph. They might not know, that we know about them yet. When each of you has returned to your ships. We will increase speed on my signal, and only on my signal by one mph. We will keep doing that, until we are moving at the fastest speed the slowest of ships in the convoy can make." Kelly looked around the table to make sure each of them understood his orders. Then he focused on one commander in the group. "I Cee U, I want you to keep a very close eye on that War Shark submarine. When they give the first indication that they notice we are picking up speed, I think she will be the first one to come check out why. I need to know, as soon as she looks to have noticed what we're doing."

The Captain from the Sand Box cocked his head, and a little bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. He licked his lips, before asking what was on his mind and a few other Captains around the plotting table. "So what happens then?"

Kelly gave the other man a sly grin that would never had been called friendly. Kelly could tell that this cargo ships Captain was working out whether or not, his ship was the slowest or not. It was like the old adage of "You don't need to swim faster than a shark. You only have to not be the slowest swimmer in your group." It should not take that commander long to come up with two answers. One was that the I Cee U was the slowest ship, but being so small the slavers would most likely not bother with her. The second item, was that the Sand Box was the next slowest ship in this convoy, and she was large enough to draw a lot of attention from the slave gathering ships.

Kelly switched to a softer tone of voice. "Don't worry, Captain. I have a plan. Now if there are no more questions? Please go back to your ships, so that we can pick up the pace some." The other Captains nodded in approval with the hope that the escort commander, did indeed have not only a plan but a workable one at that. Kelly was watching them, as they started to file out of the cramped metal room. He had to keep a poker face welded to his face until the last one left this bridge.

When the last interloper had left the bridge, Joe walked back up to his Captain. He looked the other man dead in the eye. He had a good idea what the Captain was going to say, but he had to ask the question anyway. "So Captain. What exactly is the plan when that ugly assed Mk 4 comes to pay us a visit?"

Kelly looked at the other man levelly in the eyes in return. He was going to be honest, even if it was not the best for moral. "I have no idea, but I hope to have a few hours to get one worked out before Mr. Fin Head notices something had changed. The only other idea I have been able to come up with, really sucks."

Joe just nodded his head up and down, but he did not open his mouth again. That was the answer, he had both feared and expected from this boss. Well, he had things he wanted to do before the ship was in combat again. First off, he was going to check the Bow missile launchers. He wanted to make sure that they were loaded with the Proton warheads on the big box launcher mounted on the bow of the Revenge. Then he was going to make sure that the plasma warheads were load, on the medium launcher. He was betting that his boss wanted all the heavy hitting warheads ready to go at the push of a button. He just wished they had more than the four nuclear warheads for the long range missiles. By the order of the Captain, they would not even be loaded into the tubes unless he gave the order to the turret commander in personnel. Getting those four devices had taken years, and they used up of lots of money and favors that were owed to Captain Kelly and his family. Joe's last stop before going back to his bridge station, was to check on those same four weapons carried under the deck. He want to make sure that if they were needed, they could be loaded very quickly into the bow mounted launcher. If a tube was empty, it should only take about 90 seconds to have the nuclear warhead tip missile moved from the read area to the empty tube. It might be a long 90 seconds, but it was do able in combat.

The sun was on its way down, but the setting sun still gave enough light to tell the difference between a gray and black thread. The Mk 4 metal shark looking submarine, had just seemed to notice the change of speed of the convoy. It took longer than it should have, and it did not change its course or speed until the whole mess of a convoy was moving north at 22 mph. This was the fastest the convoy could go, and still be unit. Captain Kelly had to keep on the other ship's Captains, to keep everyone together. It was now, what was referred to as a leadership challenge. To keep the convoy's high speed run from turning into a rout, and getting them all killed. When huge submarine had finally made its move to towards the convoy. Captain Kelly was able to set up an ambush using the I Cee U and the two Tritons escort vessels to spring a trap on the alien built underwater warmachine. They had been able to take out the 4,000 ton high tech attack submarine fast, but it still had cost them one of the escorting Tritons. When someone fires seven large torpedoes at one target at very close range. Some of them are going to hit, no matter what the targeted ship did. The 250 ton ships sank almost at once, when it was hit with four of those monsters. The four hits on the small warship spread out almost evenly, from bow to stern of the little craft. Only six of Flying Titans suits had been able to make it back to the convoy, after the loss of their home. They had been the only known survivors from the little ship. Those powered armored units now, were on one of the smaller cargo ships. They were to act as extra firepower when/if they needed them to defend the convoy.

With the nearest enemy ship now out of the way, the convoy had an opening that might save some of them. Captain Kelly pass along a copy of his log book to each of the other ships. In it, was a simple statement, which shared credit for the kill between all three escorting warships. We would send any updates to the rest of the ships in the convoy as needed. Along with the logbook, each crewmen from his ship was offered to attach "A last letter" and hand it off. Kelly was hoping that at least one of the other ships, would be able to make to a safe port. This would make sure that an as complete story as possible account could to be given to Neptune's Revenge crew's families along the "life insurance policy" releases. Kelly was thinking a few banks on the main land were going to have a bad few weeks when all of those accounts were closed.


	4. Chapter 4

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Under the sea a few hours ago**

Tha-kathi, was a senior Kittani. He had been on this planet for over 60 of its turns, around the little yellow star at this systems center. He was one of the few of his kind that loved being underwater, even if he hated the planet he was currently on. He had been that way all of his mature life. He had come up through the ranks, to finally take command of this War Shark six rotations before coming to this Rift rich planet. He and most of his crew had been brought to this planet on short notice. His people had come after the takeover of the landmass, which had at one time belonged to their most hated enemy. The world had been over flowing with energy and life, all things that could be used by his kind. The leaders of Atlantis set up a huge slave marked on that newly concurred land, and it always needed filling of new wares to sell or trade. So Tha-Hathi, his ship, and his crew had been brought to this planet, to help supply the constant need for new slaves. He had thought, at least for the first few years that his 4000 ton warship was overkill for this world. Now he knew that these humans could be a threat, after his first raid against a more prepared target. Now his beloved War Shark, had been repaired half a dozen times over the years. All because of these small beings that called this world home, and they were only getting stronger and smarter every year. At least that was the way it seemed to him and a growing number of his breed.

When word had been passed of a huge (for this world) water based convoy, which was carrying thousands of thinking beings to a new location. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up for his superiors. This decision would have been the same, even before the Demon and Deevil had returned to try to take this planet over for their own use. Now the High Lords needed this influx of meat from their many and varied needs. Humans were used both for food and they could be turn into weapons, to help the High Lords. So under direct orders from the highest levels, this attack force had been gathered and then sent out to do the High Lords bidding. Tha-kathi had been primarily charged to keep the fleet of human surface ships from making any safe port. Since he had been already out to sea, his was the perfect ship for that job.

Everything had been working out about as well as Tha-kathi could expect, for a very short notice combat mission. The other forces had some issues at first, but they were on the way. The other ships would soon be in position to attack the human surface water ships. Being the leader of a crew with ten other officers and 60 other crew was an art form, and took a lot of his time to do properly. That was why it took some time, well call it hours, to notice that the little group of ships had increased their speed. Unlike the humans they were stocking, he knew where the rest of the attack force was because his magic uses that were on his ship could tell him to within a foot. The target should have no idea what was coming for them. This mission had been operating under a very controlled environment, just so that surprise could be maintained. But yet they were now moving at over half the top speed of his craft, for no reason that he could make out. Why would they be doing that? When Tha-kathi reported up the chain of command about the change, before he did anything that might be later pointed to as jeopardizing the mission. The High Lords also wanted to know what was going on, and he still had been grilled about spooking the prey. He was ordered by them to close on the target, and find out what was going on. Then after working that out, he was to report back to him. Cargo ships did not like to burn the fuel, it took to move ships that large that fast. It just cost too much to replace the liquid fuels they used for a high speed run without a very good reason.

So Tha-kathi had increased the speed of his craft, and closed to see what was going on. He launched eight dolphin living drones to move out in front of his ship. To help him scout for any dangers that might be trying to sneak up on his ship. He had just finished putting on the body armor, which he was just doing in case something went wrong. Then things went wrong, while he was still closing up the armor in his large personnel cabin. It seemed like the world came down around his ears holes. The massive over 4,000 ton ship, shook like small sheep in a hungry dragon's mouth. Tha-kathi had a very hard time making his way to the command position on his ship, as his ship was hit again and again by massive hammer blows. Finally after making to the CIC, he demanded to know what was going on. His crew had no more idea of what happened than he did. They were being attacked but there systems were only picking up the incoming torpedoes and not who was launching them. It was like they were being attacked by ghost, very well armed, with modern weapons ghosts. He was thinking that this could not be right. Or could it? He would never know that one of his junior officers fired off a volley of torpedoes at the last sound he was able to pick up.

Above the large alien warship, the human crewed warships were on the shark looking warship like pack of wolves on a house cat. The I Cee U had been able to track and had accurately plotted the course of the enemy underwater warship. And they were able to get the information to escort commander without the enemy know about it. Kelly was then able to get the two Tritons, each with a towed XS 30 attack submarine set in a good attack position. It was set up so that the War Shark went right between the two groups with only a bit under 900 feet distance between all of them, and the target submarine. All of the warships had been powered down and playing like a hole in the water, not making a sound. The War Shark had been tracking the convoy by the sounds of their engines and wakes not by radar or visual. Without that data the alien sub had lost the escorts in the surface clutter. If the War Shark had enough time, and the I Cee U had not been around. It might have been able to use other systems or magic to find the convoy escorts. They just did not have the time and the humans were not inclined to give it to them anymore. On command from the Revenge, everyone else fired everything they had on the metal shark looking submarine. The two surface escorts each fired four torpedoes and six massive depth charges right on top of the War Shark. The surprise attack went through without interception, and even without guidance the depth charges found there mark.

The D-Bee warship was not the only one surprise by the attacking weapons. One of the small escorting warships had a surprise on board, which even the escort commander did not know about. The seven plasma warheads went off and a dozen similar armed charges went off only 15 second from start to finish. That was surprisingly good shooting, but the big surprise was a very small nuclear warhead that went off when it struck the alien craft. The seven other torpedoes did more damage total than that one weapons did. But it was still massive amount damage dealt out with only one hit. The main hull of the sub surface warship lost half of its armored strength in less than a minute. Along with that, the under mount laser cannon turret and one of the mini missile holding side fins were blasted off the animal shaped vessel. The quick reflexes or by accident, the gunner station on the War Shark punched off torpedoes from each of the chin or gill mounted tubes. The only target they had, was the one surface ship that had launched the nuclear weapon at them. The delay in the launching of the nuclear warhead equipped torpedo had given the enemy vessel time to look in the right direction when it was launched. The sound of the launching attracted the weapons operator. Maybe it was blind luck or karma but the small escort warship was blasted into finger sized parts. While the shock wave from the nuclear detonation was still shaking the water, and ringing sonar operator's ears on other ships in the human convoy. One human ship was already dead.

The dozen torpedoes launched from the barely submerged XS-30s, went in next. They struck less than a minute after the surface ships launched weapons. They spread their damage over the length and breadth of the large underwater warship, as one by one they found there mark. It blasted armor and sent more shockwaves through the vessel, but they did not do any telling damage. Every little bit helped, and this damage did set up for the enemy vessel for the hammer blows coming in from the escort commander's vessel. The War Shark crew had not yet been able to make to most of the weapons station to defend their ship. Every weapons strike would shake the ship. This was cause them to be delayed a little more as they fought to keep their footing. It was just as Captain Kelly had been hoping they would, when he planned this attack.

The massive tail fin of the shark shaped ship, separated from the main body of the enemy ship. As the four heavy guided torpedoes launched from the Neptune's Revenge, came in to add their own warheads to the abused water. All four were able to strike at once, with the damage coming in so fast and so heavy. That the non-human crew slavers of the enemy warship could do nothing but take the abuse. The now torpedoist shaped submarine had its hull breached in a dozen different places. That was before the last of the four warhead exploded against the side of the War Shark. Even with armor still covering the crew of the ship, they were dead when the last warhead exploded. The ship was flooding and compressing the air until it burned, just like an old style Diesel engine. The forward half of the once great warmachine was soon fallowing its tail fin, to the muddy bottom of the ocean. It soon would be joining the thousands of other wrecks in the mud. That had made the same journey over the thousand or so years, which man had plied the waters of this area of the ocean. This area was once called "The Graveyard of the Atlantic Ocean" for a reason.

The battle was over so fast, that Kelly and his crew were about ready to launch another salvo when they stopped in mid motion. Over there built in comms systems of their helmets, the sounds of the enemy ship breaking up came to them. Then they heard it being crushed by the increasing waters depth, as it sank lower and lower in the water column. It came over the built in speakers loudly and very clearly, enough so as to cause some to become very uncomfortable hearing it. The experienced crew had no problem in identify the sound of a ships dying, as the unforgiving ocean claimed more lives. It was under the cover provided by the reverberating sound waves of exploding warheads, and the submarine breaking up. That the once living dolphins now turned drones slipped away. They were on their assigned mission to find the little fleet, and attack one of the largest ship they could find.

It was now time for a mad dash for a safe harbor, but the human convoy needed to stay as a group. Or they would die one at a time without any mutual support. The remaining escorts were placing themselves between the rest of the attackers and the almost defenseless cargo ships. It seem like they might make it, but that was only for about 20 minutes. Then things started to go the slavers way again.

"Sir, the I Cee U reports that the Strike ships have increased speed to 120 mph, and are closing on us FAST! They are also saying that the Sea Fins are now on the surface, and moving at between 50 and 60 mph. The range is opening between the two groups, but the Strikes will be within 40 miles of us in about an hour at this sea state." Stated the plotting tech as she updated the table, as she told the commander at the same time. Multi-tasking was a must on a modern ship of the seas.

Kelly dropped his head and looked at his ships shoes. He had been hoping, that by taking out the large submarine first, and by surprise. It would force the rest of the attackers to drop back a good distance from his convoy. He had hoped that maybe, they would take the time to come up with a new plan. It looked like luck, was just not with them today.

Kelly was quite for almost a full minute, then with a sigh he started to give orders. "Well that tears it. Send to all ships "Scatter, good luck and god speed. We are going with the plan GTH." He looked around the bridge and picked up the ship wide speaker phone. He used his middle finger and pushed a button to activate the system. "This is the Captain. We have 60,000 tons of warship and slavers heading our way. We will do what we have to, for as long as we can. We will make sure as many people, can get out of the way of those monsters. When we signed on to be an escort, we agreed to put our lives forward to protect others. Well boys and girls, looks like we will earn our pay today. No matter what happens. Those slavers will know, that they had been kissed, before we are done. May Neptune's trident strike deep and may the shield Aegis protect us!" He let go of the switch, and put the speaker phone back on to is locking cradle.

Captain Kelly looked around the group of crewmembers on the bridge. He know it would only take a few seconds more, before every soul in the whole fleet know what was about to happen. The little convoy was just starting to break up, when Captain Kelly looked up with a jerk. His eyes drawn to the sound and the flash of an explosion. His eyes were glued to raising large tall fountain of water, which was rising from the stern of the 650 foot long M/V Luck Find. Before the water had settled back down back down to sea level. Four round elongated cans fell from the aft deck of the large transport, and into the water. A few seconds later, the high tech depth charge detonated when they came into contact with something hard below the waters.

The Communications station operator's head came up, and yelled across the bridge before Kelly could turn from the armored glass. "Sir! The Find reports that someone attacked, and destroyed one of her props and rudders. They think they got two of the attackers but they are requesting help. They are dead in the water, until there engine management system reboots."

Kelly reacted quickly, like the highly trained professional he was. "Helm! Hard over to starboard, and bring us close on her leeward side. Then cut all power to pods."

Before he could say more. The old enlisted man, which was the link from the bridge to the deployed parasite craft, let his leather lungs sound off at full volume. "Sir! The attack subs are reporting contact with four Dolphin class combat drones under the Find, and are moving to attack them. Do I need to wave them off?" The four small craft would not want to be caught in a cross fire between the Lucky Find and the Neptune's Revenge, if they could help it.

Captain Kelly was looking at the plotting table, and did some quick math in his head. "They must have been on a Sled from the War Shark, and on the way towards. But before we blew her out of the water. I should have had thought of that. They had a picket out as a trip wire force, and we did not pick them up on passive sonar. That was sloppy. I should have known better, or at least looked around after we blew that slaver out of the water."

Kelly made a face before looking up from the table. "Contact each of the attack subs. Confirm to them. That they are take out those abominations right now! Don't worry about the bills, just put them down. If they can get any proof of their destruction great! If not, well the Whale Singers will know what we did any way, by the end of the day. If the attack submarines need any help let us know, and we will drop hammers for them." Kelly was pissed, he had been over confident, and it had come back to bit him, well bit another ship in the aft.

Joe looked over to Kelly, and pitched his voice a little low. So low, that it would not carry to the rest of the nearby bridge crew easily. "Yea, your right. They will like it, if we can free those tortured animals even it was by killing them." Dolphins had also changed with the coming of the Rifts to this world. They had always been smart, now they were proven smarter than a lot of people that Kelly and Joe could name. The slaves were not always after humans, and they would turn these peaceful animals into weapons of war. The Whale Singers were a new type of whale that looked after other animals of the deep. They even could carry battle armor and weapons to defend themselves and attack slavers. They were good allies to have in the hostile oceans. They would like it that Kelly and his ship had freed these tortured souls, even if did kill while they did it.

Kelly nodded once to the XO but in a low voice, so that it would not carry too far. "Joe, I want to have those four do a quick search of our local area after taking out those drones. While there doing that, we need find out how badly the drones hurt the Lucky Find. I don't want to have any more surprises, than we have to." He raised his voice so that it would carry to the different station around the Bridge this time. "Speaking of the Luck Find, Comms, please contact her head master. Try to find out how badly they think there damaged. Pass along that we need a detailed report as soon as they can get one together. We can use it, to see how we can help her."

It was almost half an hour later, the communication crewmember came up to the Captain, as he was looking at the plot glass. The enemy ships were close enough to be picked up on the Neptune's systems, without having to have the data first forwarded from the I Cee U. "Sir the Captain of the Find report that they have lost one shaft and prop, but they did not lose the rudder after all." The tech's hands were shaking as she read the rest of the message. "They report they can make 20 mph, but that is the top speed at the maximum power setting."

She leaned forward and pitched is voice as softly as possible. "Sir, we also have picked up the edge of a large Rift. It is about 40 miles to the east of current course, on north to south line. It was not there 10 minutes ago when we last ran a detailed active scan. I thought it was a system glitch or something, so I did not pass it over to the plotting glass, yet. Now we can pick it on passive optical systems as well."

Kelly took offered slip of paper, and read the information for himself. He looked back up to the tech, and made eye contact and then nodded his head up and down. He only needed to that once as a reward. He stern look told her that it was a border line reward. Please pass it to plotting table now, if you would."

The comms tech waved to one of her co-workers on the other side of the metal room, then looked down at her small hands. She was not wanting to make eye contact with the ship's master, but she felt like she needed to explain her actions. "Sir, I know I should have passed it on before now. But I was worried that it might distract the crew, and if it had turned out to a glitch and not there for real. It would have caused problems with the crew for no reason."

Captain Kelly suspected that would have be the case, but he was watching the plot glass as the Rift was added to the information on the plotting table. Rifts were very scary events, and Kelly did not doubt that it would have been on everyone's mind that a Rift just happened to show up. He had seen reports, and heard stories about people who were supposed to be able to "call" Rifts. Why someone would do a crazy thing like that? He had no idea, but that had been in the reports he had read. The only thing Kelly now had left were a series of bad options. For the life of him he could not come up with anything like a "good" idea. He had to buy more time for the rest of the convoy to escape the slavers. Not only was it his job, but it was the right thing to do. He reached over to a phone like device mounted on the side of the plotting table, so that he could have a private conversation with the person on the other end. The comms tech that had made the report had already returned to her station, and was not in earshot of the ship's captain. He had only one idea that might work, if things went there way perfectly, it did have half a dozen variations. If they did not break that way? Well they were on borrowed time anyway. That was just a fact of life on Rifts Earth

"Patch the Captain of Luck Find to my private line, please." Kelly said to the radio tech in an as even tone as he could. Most of the people on the bridge would think that he was just checking on the repair times. Kelly then waited patiently on the line until the voice he was waiting on, answered on what Kelly was hoping also was a private line on his end.

It took a hand full of seconds for someone on the other end of his phone to pick up, and speak to him with the greeting of the day. Captain Kelly just jumped in with the reason for the contact. "Bob, they just gave me your updated damage report. I need to know two things. Is there any way to increase your speed, and how long would you need to complete repairs?" He was listing intently, then rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the metal bridge. It was as bad as he had feared. That just cut three of the ideas he had, right off at the knees. Then a brick came down, and landed right on his toe.

Kelly's eyes shot open and he almost staggered. "The whole prop was destroyed, and the prop hub with part of the shaft fell off?" Kelly's voice went louder than he had intended, when he repeated what the other ships commander had report to him. The Lucky Find did not use Azipods like the Revenge, but instead she used a pair of long metal shafts to turn the bronze fan like props. The power to turn those massive fan like blades was supplied from engines mounted deeper in her hull. The twin engines were mounted under the main aft mounted super structure of the Handymax design. Now that ship has lost half of hers mechanicals used to turn engine power into speed.

Kelly forced his voice lower but he did want to whisper. Whispering carried farther than most people realized. "Bob, I would bet that they know you're carrying over 2000 people in your hull. Even the Splugorth Sea Fins can make three times your top speed now." Kelly swallowed before dropping his suggestion to the other ships master. "I have an off the wall idea. It does not give us, and that includes you and your crew now. That much of a chance of living, but it is better than alternatives that we will get from the Slavers." He told the other man the first part of his plan. It went over about as well as you would expect.

Kelly waited, and let Bob go on with his ranting. And when the other Captain took a breath, to start up again. Kelly jumped in to stop him from blowing out his eardrums. "Look Bob. It will buy enough time for the rest of the ships to get under cover of some air support. We have confirmed GAW is flushing everything they can beg, borrow or steal to come our way. By the way, how is your Independent life-support system working?" Kelly went into so more detail of his plan. All the time making sure the rest of his bridge crew could not hear him.

He was listing to the person on the other line, who was a little calmer now. "Bob this is my plan. If you're not game, then put everyone you can in lifeboats and shoot them in head. That is because they will be as good as dead anyway." Over the next few minutes, Captain Kelly gave the other man a little better outline of his insane plan. It was a plan only a desperate person would make up, much less try to sell to another somewhat sane person. It also was the only plan that any of them could think of. That might give them a better than zero percent chance of them not becoming slaves or food for the D-Bees on their heels. It still sucked and they both knew it.

The two Horune Strike Ships looked like the back of a whale waving its fluke in the air above the sea, but with an inverted Y attacked at the end of its body in place of a flat and wide tailfin. They would have looked just like the animal, but for the size and the Y attachment. They were not of this Earth and this pair had not even been built on this planet. Instead they had been brought here by evil magic, and lots of it. The pair were closing in on the lightly armed cargo carrier at their highest speed that they could make. The second large human surface ship must have left this one alone, because it was no longer detachable by the two slavers commanders on the on rushing ships. That was what the Horune in charge of the two alien ships had talked itself into believing. This idea had the advantage that it match what it was seeing and what it wanted to see with its own biologic senses.

They would collect this one ship, and then work on tacking down the other large ships. That they had been told about, with such a valuable cargo of thinking meat with in there hulls. The Horune commander knew that his leadership would not be happy with him, no matter how much meat they brought back. The loss of the War Shark was shock, and blame must be placed for the loss of such a valuable asset. It had not doubt that it would be him, which was blamed for the loss of the animal shaped vessel. The ships still under his command were closing on their target, as fast as the odd shaped ship could go. Many among the mixed crews on both of those ships were excited. Where planning on what they would be doing with the prize money, and rewards they were about to receive after taking this vessel. No one had told them that human adage, about counting chickens before they hatched. They might have been just to alien, to understand what was meant by the saying. That would soon change, if they lived long enough to learn.

The two Horune ships were only about four miles from the massive cargo ship, and coming up fast onto one of its massive slab sides. They were about to the location, that the two slaver ships were about to fire a warning shot when the situation changed. The idea for the warning shots, was to scare the cargo/passenger ship into stopping. It would make boarding easier for the slavers. They also did not want to waist the ammunition, or wear and tear on their weapons. Second if they could scare the ship into giving up. They should be able to take more slaves, that otherwise might have died due to an exchange of weapons fire. They might have wanted to know about another old human saying. And that one was. "No plan survive contact with the enemy".

One second the slave ships were fallowing one ship. Then all of a sudden a second ship showed up from beside the other human cargo ship, with weapons blazing. The Neptune had been using the larger Luck Find as a radar and visual shield, until when the time was just right to attack the approaching enemy ships. Using a data linked feed from the other side of the cargo ships to the warship's bridge, Captain Kelly knew when it was time to act. He was manning the helm in person, because he had a finer touch on the controls with all of his years of experience working that position. He flipped the azipods 180 degrees, flared the massive blades to push the most water they could, and went to maximum power setting on the engines. This was done all in one fluid movement that was so fast, it was missed by most of the bridge crew nearby.

When the ship's bow had cleared the Lucky Find. Kelly swung his ship around with in her own length, with an over revving of the bow thrusters helping to move the warships bow along a little faster. Now facing the right direction, and clear of the larger cargo ship. Kelly charged the two enemy ships, using every bit of horsepower his ship could produce. To give at least a little bit of cover to the Neptune, the Luck Find had ordered its own twin missile launcher to go into rapid fire mode. They would be adding there damage potential of High Explosive and Plasma/Napalm warheads on the two slave looking ships This would be on top of what the Neptune's Revenge was going to the pair of alien crewed vessels.

The Lucky Finds weapons fire was not trying to sink the two enemy ships, but it was more to keep any power armor pinned down on the exposed decks busy. By busy, they wanted them to either duck for cover or try to shoot down the incoming weapons. Kelly did not want them flying off the ship, and attack the two ship left under his command. It they made it airborne they would dilute his firepower with too many individual targets. They did need to have done that this time, but the plan was based on personal experience of both sea captains. The Slavers believed that they were not going to have firefight. Until that is that, they boarded the large human ship with its few thousands lightly armed soon to be slaves. What power armor the slavers planned to use, was the lightest made for the slavers. That was supposed to help them move around the anticipated narrow corridors and hatches of the targeted human ship. What the Horune commander had on deck, had also been rigged and fitter out with low damage weapons. They were not meant to be used in a heavy stand up fight of any kind. It was hoped that these would make taking the humans alive both easier and quicker. Even there magic users were not ready for a firefight of any kind. The Horune own magic users, were below decks getting ready for the inflow of new slaves, that it would be there jobs to see to the need taming. But mostly they were thinking about the fun that would be having among the helpless human crews. That hey were about to have access to.

Captain Kelly was leaning forward on the edge of his command chair with both hands on the controls. "It was working, it was working." He thought to himself and unknown to him his statement, had slipped out for the rest of the bridge to hear over there built in receivers. He waved for the younger helm operator to take over driving the ship, now that the hard driving was over. Captain Kelly now had other things that needed to be commanded, now that the fine driving was done. The first missiles that had been launched from the Lucky Find were now impacting on the enemy ships. More were making it to contact the target, more than any of the humans in their right mind had a right to expect. The downside was that even medium sized warheads, were not powerful enough to really hurt the magic made ships. That is unless a truck load of them hit all at once. It started the job, but it was going to take a lot more firepower to kill the pair of slave catching ships. Or they would need a whole lot more luck, than they had been given over the last few weeks.

Kelly had his electronic field glasses out and study the situation unfolding off his ship's bow. "Helm thread the needle, at the run if you please. Forward missile launcher focus on the Port side ship first then the starboard one. Other turrets take the ship on their sides as we pass. Let the gun captains know, not to spare the ammo or power. The orders are "Take the gloves off, if you please." The weapons officers smiled and passed along the orders word for word. Some were going to love them, others were going to hate those words. The surprise for the land based passengers, would be that some of the haters were on his own gun and missile crews. The reason was that, someone had to carry the reloads for and to the rapidly firing human weapons. That was hot, heavy and dangerous work, even when other people were not trying to kill you at the same time. They would deal with it and get the jobs done, after all. It was not as if their lives depend on how fast or well that they could do their jobs, are anything like that.

The bow mounted long ranged missile launcher was a modified ML-12 design. It was firing four missiles at a time, each with a heavy proton warhead. It would then turn about a hundred degrees, and fire four more missiles at the other ship. Then it would shift again, to fire more missiles at the first target. This was about as fast as the weapons mount could fire at a target this close. They could have fired faster, but they would not have any hope of hitting said target. Long ranged missiles were very expensive and sometimes were very finicky about needing targeting data. With long range missiles there was a thing for being "to close" to your target.

Behind the ML-12 were a set of three anti-missile ion weapons, which were of no help right now, but would be helpful when the enemy missiles and battle armor started to fly. Behind them were the heavy twin barreled laser turrets that were built at the end of the Golden Century, one on each side of the ship. They were fired at maximum powered level of energy into the slavers ships, as fast the systems could cool and recharge. Each turret was getting off three aimed shots every 15 seconds, and missing a target that were the size of the Horune vessels and at this close of a range. That was just not going to happen, not with these well trained gun crews. Data and image recording feeds going into the Bridge and gun crews, started to show parts staring to fall off the slave collecting ship. More and more hits kept adding damage to the enemy ships. As the angled changed between the attacker and slave ships, more and more weapons were able to engage both enemy vessels.

The two salvaged long barreled 5 inch heavy cannons that were bored to 127mm in diameter were next in line. They were firing new plasma warheads into their targets as fast as they could. The gun crews were up to around 15 to 20 of the 75 pound rounds per minute coming from each gun barrel. It was a rain of metal and fire hitting the targeted enemy. These cannons were not firing Golden Century built ammunition, but items that had been built after the Rifts had brought humans so low. Iron Hold of the Coalition States, had first made these types of rounds for the 8 inch cannon mounted on the Sea King class cruiser. With the large number of Warships found by GWS, they had opened a second line to make the slightly less powerful 5 inch cannon shells for the growing market. They might have been less powerful than the larger cannon. Now they could cause more damage, than at any other time before the comings of the strange blue energy lines brought humans race low. It did not do much for the barrel liners life. They could put a world of hurt on whoever was on the receiving end of the steel rain until the liners wore out. Captain Kelly had two of those single gun turrets called MK 45 mod 5 in another time on his great ship.

The three forward mounted Ion anti-missile mounts manned by armor suited gunners were now taking out the few counter launched missiles coming from the slaving ships. The center weapon of the three gunners was the senior person. She was also the best gunner of the group. It was her job to swing her weapon to support whatever side might need her firepower, to intercept incoming enemy missiles. This also just happened to let her fire at each enemy ship, when she had time. Each hit was not even in the flea bite range of damage on the Horune crewed vessels. That is if she hit the targets that were out of her effective range, but it sure was fun. Besides the power was supplied by the ships main engine, as long as she kept the weapon in its mount. So she did not have to worry about little things like running our o juice.

It took over 90 seconds of battle for the first real, maybe aimed fire, to be sent back towards the charging human ship. By that time the crazy ship had went between the two slaver ships. In that time it had only been hit with one of the massive Plasma cannons, and one twin hit from a Plasma turret coming from the port side alien ship. And two twin Plasma turret hits from the starboard side slaver ship. Each hit rung the ship like an oversized bell and sent melted armor plate flying through the sea air. So far nothing had been hit that would adversely affect the ships ability to fight or float, yet. With the two enemy warships being so close, very few misses were made by the crack gun crews of the Neptune on their chosen slaving prey. The two Horune warships could not fire as freely, because any miss on the human ship could mean a hit on one of the other slaver ships. In fact the two enemy ships had hit each other six times. That was before the some of the Horune ship's officers were able to make it to the weapons crews. The officers had to explain that they needed to be more care full with their weapons fire control. Energy whips, do have a way of getting a gun crew to pay attention. It did however lowered their rate of fire. It also cut down on the amount of damage they could have caused the crazy human ship attacking them.

The same was not true for the human ship, and by the time it had passed between the enemy warships. The Port side ship was blown in half and parts were rapidly sinking towards the ocean bottom. The Starboard slave ship was listing heavily to one side and trying to open the distance between the two human ships. Captain Kelly turned his ship hard to one side. He was using one of the larger parts of the enemy 30, 000 ton hulks, as a shield against any weapons fire form the other slaver ship. Captain Kelly did not want to expose his ship to more damage just yet, if he did not have to. He knew that this was only the second part of this battle, and he was almost out of tricks that might work. If his luck held he had one more play.

The one remaining Strike ship was falling back, towards the two on rushing Sea Fins. It would seem that it, did not want to get into another firefight. At least not with a ship that not only had done so much damage to him. Not to mention that same said warship had destroyed his commander's ship, in only a handful of minutes. He being whom the sole surviving ship's commander, could not remember when the last Strike ship had been destroyed so fast. The total battle had been only 15 minutes from the time the Revenge popped out from behind the cargo ship, and when Kelly took his ship behind one part of sinking slave catching ship. The Slaver Captain wanted the security of more fighting ships, before he tried to take on these two ships again. He had lost his nerve, and his other officers knew he would lose his head. When they returned to base, no matter what happed during the rest of the battle. Kelly was okay with letting the last enemy warship escape. He had been hoping against hope that the second enemy vessel would pull back from the battle site.

When the slave catching ship was over the horizon and could not see the humans any more, he activated his plans for the next part of the battle. The two human ships turned from chasing the monster crewed slave ship, and went East word. They would be going at the best speed they could get out of their battle damaged ships, but still remain together. The rest of the human fleet were still going varying degrees of West to North. They were leaving the pair of ships to die together. Many of those ship's crews had mixed feelings. They were happy that they might live, and also embarrassed that they were happy. They knew that someone else was going to die, just so that they might have a chance to live a little longer.

Trans dimensional Rifts in 110 PA Earth were a common thing, not as common or as powerful as they had been in Dec 2098. But they were still around, and they ranged from being only very dangerous to the very real 9th ring of Hell on a very, very bad day. If you crossed into one of these blue ribbons of energy that cress crossed the world? You will never knew were you might end up. On the Earth side of the Blue miles long ribbon, you could not "see" threw to the other side. You could find yourself on Earth a few thousands of miles away, or someplace back in time but on this Earth still, or in space, on another planet, or even in another dimension. These places could belong to or ruled by gods or one of the devils that were now known to be very real, and very much live. The bad part was that they were just as evil as written about. If you were crazy enough to cross into a Rift, willingly. You only did so, if you had scouted the other side very well. It was considered good practice, that you had better have scouted it very well before you did a mass jump through into whatever was waiting for you on the other side. That was if you had the time. And were not being chased by lots of bad guys with lots of guns, heavy body armor, large warship, and even magic weapons at the time you were near one of these blue energy drapes. In this case they had to choose between short but miserable lives as slaves or play things. Or they can take their chances, and go through the blue glowing line of a Rift that crossed the blue sea and cloudless sky in front of them. It was not a choice that most would have enjoyed making or even thinking about making.

It was figured out by man some time ago. When they were just starting to come out of the Dark Age caused by the coming of the Rift, that Ships had special issues with dimensional Rifts. It was that anything that moved on the water, had a higher chance of moving threw a Rift unnoticed than any other type of movement on the planet. This could be due to weather, or water depth, traveling at night or half a dozen other theories. No knew why, for sure, it just was a given fact of life. To combat this problem, some of the first modification done on any of the larger ships, were the addition of space rated Airlocks. The design had been copied from a lucky find of an almost intact space transport off the coast of Free Quebec. It had been found during the Dark Age, which had been maybe near the ground when the Rifts came to this planet. This find also showed engineers, how to make or modify the ship's hulls to be truly airtight and space rated. This did not turn surface ships into submarines or spacecraft. It did make so that if those ships were transported to a place where the air was hostile, or underwater but less than a mile deep they would survive for a short time. The ship writes tried to have as many bases covered as they could, but if a Rift dropped them some were in the sky more than 30 feet above something hard? Well, then they were in for a fall to the planet's surface. That is until someone could come with a way to make a 58,000 ton ship fly through the air without wings. So far there had not been any breakthroughs in a technology fix for that department. You could try keeping someone with very strong magic skills around. But that was still listed as an at best a "maybe, you would live through it".

To supply clean air for the passengers and crew with the right mix of gases and food. A high-tech hydroponics zone was designed each craft that was large enough to carry one. It was complete with robotic automatic pollinators installed, if the ship's owner had the money. It would be installed on a ship very quickly. This outfitting was called an Independent Life Support System or ILSS. A full functional one could keep a ship as a viable habitat for months, even if they were lost in deep space. Some very wealthy owners, who lived on their pride and joys full time. Were known to even try to mount rocket thrusters on outside of their ship's strong hulls. No one who had done this extensive modification to their ship had return to Earth, yet. So the practice was considered dubious at best, and a waste of money at worse still.

Meanwhile back on the Neptune's bridge. Captain Kelly was watching the blue energy barrier glow get closer and closer, as both ships limped towards it. In his mind's eye he was still weighing, "Is this plan going to be worth it or not?" He had a sudden flashback to one of the pirate ship he, and his crew had taken mostly intact a few years ago. He was thinking about how the slave behaved before, they realized that they were freed from the slavers. He had nightmares for a year afterwards, now he had other nightmares that had overrode the older scenes. Those slaves were reduced to be more like human shaped animals, instead of belonging to the race called man and born to his world. He would rather die than let that happen to him. He was hoping and betting that the crews, would agree with him even if this plan went wrong.

He was interrupted from deep in thought by one of his crew speaking to him. "Sir, we are one mile, and closing from the edge of the Rift. You asked to be notified." The crew woman was nervous. And it was only going to get worse, if Captain Kelly did not snap out of it himself. This was the time to be a leader, not a bump on in a chair.

"Helm! Full stop. Put me on the 1MC and also pipe me into the Find's system." Captain Kelly stood up from his chair and picked up the phone device with a false since of energy. "This is the Captain Kelly. I want everyone in Full Environmental Armor, if you have a set. That even goes, if you're behind an Airlock, strap on, seal it, and strap in. Make sure they have a full power charge and connected to ship's power, if you can. Rig all ships for a Rifts transfer, and activate the Independent life support systems. All departments report to your command when complete. We are on a time crunch people, so be quick about it people. My the gods you worship be watching over us and protect us. That is all"

It took ten minutes for all the expected reports to come in to Captain Kelly. As the last one came in from the Lucky Find. He as not exactly happy as he read it, and it was put into his ship's log book. That was because only about 1/3 of the civilian on that the Lucky Find was carrying in her hold, would have the extra protection. That would have been provided by having a secondary life-support system provided by the high tech armor. The rest were only going to be protected by the hull of the cargo ship, when they made transit threw the rift. Kelly knew that they had to have more of the ERA in the cargo holds some were. They had to be packed down somewhere, but he did not have the time to look for it right now. It also did not help that the two Sea Fins with the damaged Horune Strike ship were now formed together in one force or group, and they were starting to close on them fast. If they staid together he had a chance to escape.

Captain Kelly was strapped into his chair and bit his lip. He could not delay it any longer. It was time to crap or get off the pot. "Helm bring us to one quarter power, until were at 10 mph. Please pass on that order to the Lucky Find. Let them know that we will lead the way in, and we will see them on the other side. Communications, hit the high power transmitter, and let's tell the world what we did. Keep broadcasting as long as you can."

That was the last order he need to give to his crew or the Captain of the other ship. Now Kelly just had to hope that the pirates on his tail were not in line of sight to see this. And fallow the pair of ships threw the Rift. The massively over power radio went active with a pre-recorded message in the clear. The rest of the ships of the convoy would hear it, but that was the only being that would receive it. Those radio waves bounced through the atmosphere and were reported to have been picked up as far as Australia, and central Russia. Most had no idea what was going on, or in some cases what was being said. Most however, could work out a few stood against many, just like in the stories of NEME during the fall of the Golden Century. In the New Navy ships toast would be given, and story told over and over again about the brave crews and there sacrifice.

The two great dark hulls started moving toward the tall blue line of energy, at a speed of a running human. One second both ships were floating on the rolling waves of water, and the next they were gone from this Earth. When the ships reappeared on the other side of the Blue energy curtain? They were not on the surface of any water on Earth, in fact they were underwater and at some depth. For less prepared ships, this would have been the end of them, right then and there. But the Lucky Find and Neptune's Revenge were ready for this little difficulty. On Earth ships, would have been found in the bottom of what are called "Dead Pools". This is where their bodies would have been picked over, and their weapons take by new owners. But by only those either brave enough, or crazy enough to check those so named Dead Pools. Instead when the ships showed up on this new world, they were surrounded by a thin bubble of air that wrapped around each of the ships. This air bubble soon broke apart in to smaller and smaller air bubbles, innumerable that then raced to the surface this new ocean over the heads of the ships crews.

The two huge and great ships had positive buoyancy provided by the air trapped within their hulls, and it started to act microseconds after coming to his new area. The ships started to rise soon after the bubbles started up. The two ships gained speed as they moved upward, like a wood cork held underwater after being released by a hand. The great grey sea barely notices the air bubble popping on the surface, when they broke the surface tension of the wave tossed ocean. The same would not be said of when almost 60,000 tons of high tech metal, plastic and ceramics, that were pushed a great bubble of water ahead of the twin rising leviathans. The bow waves caused by the upward moving ships caused a flatting of the wind and current made waves. Then in an eye blink, the flat gray water rose smoothly upwards. It was bubble of a type, but not air filled one like the first wave that broke the surface. This one was very different beast. In a second eye blink, the gray water bubble was pierced by metal as the tops of the ship rose about surrounding sea level.

The ships had gained quite a bit of upward momentum, before they broke the water's surface. All of that momentum stopped, the second they reached the top of the underworld. The effect was like a car hitting a brick wall at 15 mph. The people inside the hard shells of the ships were so disorientated, that they could not feel their bones break. They were lucky in that his only happened to those few who were not properly restrained. It was only a little more blood to mix with the vomit, which was already well representative on the wall, floors and ceilings of both ships. It was only a few seconds that they were on the surface not moving, before the crews stated to come back to themselves. This was the first Rift transfer 99.999 percent of them had done before. Captain Kelly, was the first on his ship, to be able to turn his thoughts into words. He was soon giving those thoughts to voice at volume that would surprise anyone who did not know him.

"Potting, give me a depth sounding, Damage Control where are my Damage reports? I want to know where that Rift is, people." He was only speaking in a normal voice level, but it rang off the metal walls of the bridge from the built in speaker, and also in each of the armor clad crew-members ears and showed up on their heads up displays in bright white texted.

Most of crew-members did not have the iron stomach, that a lifetime at sea gave there Captain. So it was not immediate, that they moved to respond to his command. More than one Chipwell or Northern Gun made face plate flipped up and open first. To relieve the warier of the stink the owners had put in their own helmets. After the short delay, they were back to their jobs to comply with their commanders orders.

"Sir, we have a leak in the forward missile launcher and the port-side torpedo turret. Turret crews and damage control are working to located them. Other than that, all cabins report that they are airtight and stable." Sang out one person from about in the middle of the command center. "We have 4,462 feet of water under the hull. We are clear on all passive detection systems." Came a second report as soon as the first one had ended. "Sir, I have a reading on the Rift. It is 200 feet off the stern and 600 feet below us." This came from a third person, with an older and stronger voice. More information was being add to the different displays around the bridge of the ship without being spoken aloud.

Kelly was taking it all in, and had an inside smile as his crew went about their jobs. Then his face went pale as the information settled into his abused brain. "Drop a marker buoy. Now! Tell me when it's deployed. If it fails, drop a second one, and don't wait for the command to do it!" He started looking closer at two different displays mounted near his command chair.

The crew-woman by the panel that would do what the Captain asked, flipped up a metal cage protected switch. She then activated it with a hard push of the now exposed round green push button. On the slab sided aft section of the old ship a clamp opened with a snap, and then a thud. As three pairs of clamps struck the side of the ship. A white and yellow painted object, which was 12 foot wide and 36 feet long oval shaped metal case made by Northern Gun. It dropped into the gray water below the holding clamps. It was one of ten devices mounted in that area of the ship painted to match and blend into the rest of the hull to be as invisible as possible.

The massive device broke into two parts deep below the water, a two full minutes after water entry. The heavily armored bottom third of the device separated from the lighter top end, and started to fall faster down the water column. When the heavy bottom was fifteen feet or so way from the top part. The top part of a long pin like protrusion, which would have been seen coming out of the top part was attached to the heavy bottom. The other end had been connected to a high tech mix of plastics and metals that would never rust, but formed a cable of flexible fibers. That cable was only as thick as the average man's fist, but it was almost strong enough to lift both of the two nearby ships out of the water with a single length. The cable used the speed of the falling anchor to snap the packing material rubber bands, and let it play out of the top part of the buoy. As the lighter part of the buoy got even lighter, it sped faster to the gray water surface. It broke the gray waves before the heavy anchor had reached the rocky bottom on the ocean floor.

When an internal sensor detected that the main part of the buoy was on the surface, and not raising any more. It stated more gears and electric motors turning inside of the free floating device. Soon solar panels deployed to power the systems, that would detected and monitor the nearby Rift. Even if this planet had more than dozen hours of night, or its sun did not provide enough UV, IR or visible light to convert to electricity. The probe had an energy supply as a backup system. That was in the form of a Northern Gun made Soil Oxide battery that could power the systems all by itself for six months. That was even if the solar cells provided no support at all. If the solar cells did provide some power, then the buoy could remain active for up to a few decades. The systems had just been activated long enough to calibrate and stabilize all of its systems. Before the object of their study disappeared off the planet, and its recording systems. The systems built into the device just recorded all the data, like it was supposed to. It did not care that its sole job had just went away, and stranded the pair of human crewed ships wherever the Rift had left them.

These events were being watched by a being that one group of humans, would have called a Lord of Kobol. It was nice of the Rifts, with a little push from him, to supply him with a set of humans that might be able to help his pet project out long term. His pet program humans were going to have a cylon problem again, and maybe a few other longer term issues. If he had not pushed a little in that other realm, with so much magical power seeping out of it. He might have had to expend a lot of very visible energy to save his pet project.

The Lord smiled, and with a twist of a ring, the Dimensional Rift closed behind the two human crewed water bound ships. He made a mental note to check on them soonish. He want to see if they worked out, as well as they should be able to. Now he had other things to do, which required his attention. The invisible being shifted to another Dimension, fading away from this plain of reality. He only had so much free time to play with this hobby, he was a god after all. And gods had gods level of work they wanted to/needed to get done.

What the crew of those two human ships did not know, was that something had happened after they left Earth. That was that the two Sea Fin ships had went to full power, and charged into the Rift following the objects they saw as only more prey. There commander was familiar with Rifts, his people had used them to travel between planets for a thousand years, but this one was different. His race built huge stone pyramids on Rifts to bend them to their will. The type of Rift his ships were be lining for, was called a wild rift. That type of Rift had some dangers associated with them, but they could not let the slaves on those ships escape. These soon to be slaves, had cost his leaders a huge price already. And if it failed to take those humans, his life would be added to the cost of this operation along with the commander of the surviving Horume vessel. The commander of those two ships was attached to his life, so he order both ships to full power. In they went, after the two human crew's water ships. They were only a few minutes behind the two human ships had left their home world.

The Splugorth built Sea Fins had very advanced sensors that could "read" the statues of the Rift, and more importantly what was beyond it with ease. The Splugort were on over 100 different planets and dimensions, which were known to the general population. The section commander reviewed the data those systems were telling the ship's crew. What was he supposed to do when it matched his century of experience? He ordered both of his ships to press the pursuit of the targeted prey. The two 57,000 ton warships, now moving at 60 mph and climbing, charged forward toward the blue ribbon of energy. The shields of the both ships were at full power, all the weapons turrets were manned, and all of the combat troops were primed and ready for large and heavy scale combat. He would not be over confident like the Horume commander had been, before he had died at the hands of the weak humans. Both Splugorth and Horume did not have words or ideas that matched the human ones of "over confidence". That was too bad, for those Sean Fin's crews.

What the ship board systems keeping an eye on the Rift could not tell them, was when a higher power was soon going to step in. Just as the two ships bow mounted weapons turret disappeared into the Rift and the second weapons turret was only half way into the rift, it happened. The Rift's blue energy ribbon just went away in the blink of an eye or the space between two heart beats. The aft half and mid-section just forward of the twin odd shaped hats that made up the bridge of the two ships, was cut clean in two from the bow. It was like a hot knife through butter, a clean cut, laser like. The section left in the Atlantic Ocean went down by the bow. As the opened space filled with cold sea water, now that a sharp bow was not cutting and moving the water out of way. Both ships might have survived the bow amputation. But without the magic force fields, and the engines driving the warships at maximum power, it was not going to happen. The pair of ships and crew were as doomed as all the slaves they had caught over the years. The front of the ships were driven hard into the cold grey wave tossed water. The internal hatches were not as strong as the outer hull, and they gave way exposing more compartments to the cold and unforgiving ocean. The alien ships could not handle that much water, in so short of a time. In less than a minute the two alien built craft, were making their way to the cold mud at the bottom of that area of the Atlantic Ocean. What was left of the crews on those ships were going to die slowly, alone and cold. The souls of all of those taken and put into slavery, would be happy to know that there had been some vengeance given. The area would be searched over in the fallowing years, to try to pull up items that might be useful from the two hulks. The pair of half hulks would turn into a high tech gold mine in all but name, for years to come.

The forward part of the ships with their weapon turret, missile tubes and it crew just went away when it made contact with the blue energy that made up the visible part of the Rift. It was like a razor or huge invisible energy guillotine had come down on the ships. There component metal and biologics were stripped all the way down to the sub atomic level in a blink of an eye. Then they were spread thin across space, time, and any other place they might have fallen into. They died so quick, that they did not even notice something was wrong or that they might die. This incident would be the subject of studies by both Humans and Splugorth. The theories were more numerous, than there were stars in the night sky. Even years later, it would come down to a simple statement. That they just did not know what would happen to something half in, and half out a Rift. When it went were ever it was that a Rift went, when they disappeared off of Earth. Limited data was recovered from data cores brought up from the pair of wrecks, but they just proved something happened. Not one byte of data was about what had happened when the ships were destroyed.

Back on the surface on an ocean that was very far away from where the Rift had been. Shock was hitting a both surface ship crews. A frantic crewman was pushing every button, and was working his system. But it could not be happened, but it did. "Sir, the Rifts… Sir it's just gone!" The frantic cry went out to loud for the metal room. "One minute it was there! Now it's closed. It's completely off our scanners. Like it never was there!" Heads were turning from all around the bridge, to look at who had called out with the disturbing news.

Captain Kelly was out of his chair in a flash. He was double checking the screen at the offending station. Then he reached over, and turned a few nobs, but the data did not change, but it was true. The Rift had closed behind them, and there was no sign of the enemy ships that had been behind them. This was the only the Second time that Kelly had gone through a Rift, but it was the first time that he had heard of a Rift just going away like that. Kelly had to look around real quick. He noticed the confusion and fear on every face in the room. He acted fast in trying to stop it from spreading like a wind driven grass fire. In as calm of voice as he could muster he addressed the young man. "Don't worry son, if a Rift was here once it will come back. Looks like we made it threw just in time to get away from those slavers." I hope, was left unsaid by the ship's master. He walked over the plotting board in deep thought. "If the rift did not come back, then we will have to find another way home." His mind went back to a few books band by the CS government on the "adventures", that had been written by those who had made it back to Earth. "I don't like the odds of that happening." Kelly thought to himself and turned slightly away from the bridge crew, so that nothing would show on his face.

With his face back under control, Captain Kelly had to get his people working again. "Okay people. We need to find out where we are? Let's see if we can pop our lids, and get some fresh air into these hulls. Someone contact Lucky Find, and see how they are doing over there." That should give them something to else to think about for a while, thought Kelly. He just hoped it gave him enough time, for him to come up with an idea about what had happened and what to do next.

One of the bridge staff walked up beside the Captain, on soft feet some time later. She waited till eye contact was made with the Captain, before she did anything else. When he was ready, he waved her up to his chair. He went back to looking down at the display with all of the information, they had so far. What she had to say, she did not want the whole crew to know about just yet. If the Captain wanted them to know, he would make an announcement later. That was not her call, and she was very thankful for that right now. So with a low voice she stated to address her commandeering officers. "Sir, I don't think were on Earth anymore."

The commander looked up from the plotting table, and had that look of "I'm waiting" with a raised eyebrow. She picked up on the look and she continued after a few seconds. "The Atmospheric pressure is 14.9 lbs. that is a little higher than we are used to at sea level. Even if we were under the biggest high pressure weather system ever recorded. It might be that high for an hour or so, but it would start to fall quickly. The other Atmospheric gasses match up close to Earth normal, but are all just a little off from historic data we have on file. They all are in the safe range, but they are just a bit off. Oh and the gravity is reading it at a solid 0.9 of Earths. I don't have a complete database, but I can't think of a time in Earth's history that meets the change in gravity."

Captain Kelly pitched his voice down just a little bit, and picked his words carefully. "That is some good news at least. We will have enough air to live on, but make sure it's run through the filters before you pump into the ship. We will pop the hatches as soon as the bio tests are done, and they come back clean. I think the crew would like to get out of their armor, and back on deck to stretch their legs and eyes. Post the reports as soon as the as the bio test come back clean."

The reports came in one at time and not as fast as Kelly wanted, but they came in. Those reports held little in the way of bad news, besides being lost. No one had been killed by the ships coming through the Rift, more than a few had broken bones or concussions. So far nothing that was life threatening and needing medical attention had been reported. It was cold outside on the ship's deck, but as soon as it was cleared and declared safe. Anyone that could walk on the open decks safely, did. While that was going on, the bridge crew were laying out a search grid of the local area. The Captain of the 58,000 ton Lucky Find reported that they were also running on standby power. Now both ships did not even had their props turning. They only had been drifting in the strange cold ocean, trying to be as small as possible to the locals that might be around.

They had to find land at some time, and it was no like they had charts of a strange planet on hand. Just sitting on a back shelf somewhere in the Captain's cabin. The two ships could have flushed all two dozen serviceable flying units, but that would have been nightmare to control. Only a dozen were launched with the rest kept as a backup. If something went wrong while they were scouting around. Captain Kelly did not want to waste any fuel, this plan would let them meet multiple issues with the least amount of fuel used. This was not a problem for the nuclear fueled Neptune, but the massive Luck Find ran on liquid petroleum fuel. This normally would not be a problem, when you near the oil wells of Louisiana. She had a big enough fuel tanks to make up to two complete round trips to the colony site, and back to her home port back on Earth. As luck would have it. She had topped off all of her fuel tanks, before starting this current trip. They had no idea how long it would before they will be able to fill them up again on this planet. They would have to be careful with what she left had in her tanks. Until something else could be worked out or they died, then it would not matter anymore to them. So they sat in place, and waited to find out what direction they would need to go with the massive floating ships. They just had to wait until the time finally came and they had information to act on.

It was a few hours later, that that the first sign of adapting to the new world came into the bridge of the Revenge. "Sir, the Luck Find reports they have set up, and deployed a pair of sea anchors over both of her sides. Their Captain also reports, that they have set some heavy long fishing lines to see what might be out there. Sir, they are advising us to do the same if we can, and remind us not to eat them, no matter how well cooked they are. They are reporting that there passive sonar is picking up schools of something below then. They have a few people, which say they will be able to find out if there eatable are not. That is if they catch and land anything or not."

Keely nodded his head in agreement. "Well it looks like now all we have to do is now wait, and view the data feeds from our fly boys. XO, why don't you see if anyone on the crew list know how to do that type of deep sea fishing. If they don't want to try wetting hooks, don't push them." Captain Kelly shifted his weight to the large padded back, and got more comfortable in his chair. Meanwhile Joe went to see if anyone, that was not doing anything important. Wanted to try their luck at some test fishing in a strange ocean. He was wishing he was off shift right about then, but he knew that he could not take the time off from being the XO to do some fishing.

The flying machines went to all points of the compass with the pair of mother ships at their center, and moved out in a pattern to find any landmasses. For all they knew this planet might not have continents, or any other land masses of any worthwhile size. They wanted to find any land first, then work up to what this new world might look like later. When Captain Kelly noticed the shadows starting to get longer on the deck, he ordered all the flying units back to their ships for the night. He did not want his people flying round at night, on this strange world. At least not yet, if he could avoid it. After the Bob (Big Orange Blob) set, there was little doubt that they were on an alien planet. The night sky did not have the easy to recognized constellation, or even bright stars over there head of the people in the dark running ships. They were truly alien stars over their heads, and the eye could not draw out common points. Unlike most people from the 20th and 21st century, the people born after the coming of the Rift knew the night sky. They could see the stars almost every night and recognize some with ease. The sky also had a slight glow that got brighter and brighter as the star sat on the water horizon. It did not take long for this news to spread through both ships. This was the final nail in the coffin of most doubters.

Captain Kelly used this opportunity to contact the other ship. Now that most of his crew were working on tasks, he could have a more private conversation. He was also starting to spend time looking forward in time, instead of just in the now. He went to this day cabin, so that the next conversation would be a fully private as he could make it. "Bob, Some night sky don't you think." Kelly stopped talking and let the other man reply. With the small talk done he wanted to get to meat of what he needed to know. "I don't think we will be able to use stellar navigation like we used to. What do you think?"

The Captain of the Lucky looked at the phone like it was a snake. Was this guy crazy from the Rifts transport? "I had not even thought about navigating yet. It would seem that there are two strong magnetic poles, because our compass is working. Is that why you wanted to talk, Kelly?"

Keely smiled, but no one could see it. "No, what I need you to do, is try to get a print out of the complete cargo manifest for both of our ships. I need to know what we have to work with, and I would rather not have to unload and re-inventory each and every container on our ships. Rule one of a survival situation is identify what resources you have on hand. Also do you have an idea of the skills your colonist might have, that can be of any use in this current situation?"

The man on the other end of the radio linked, smiled to himself. Kelly was a good man and thought he might be a good leader for this mess. "It's funny that you brought up that Kelly. Step one in my survivor guide is also "identify all your resources". I will see what I can do. I can tell you right now that as it turns out, I have at least three rogue scientists in the group below decks. They stopped by my bridge just after sunset, and asked to use my machine shop to make something called a Galileo Telescope. Before you ask, I have no idea it was till I asked them. It's some kind of easy to make, hand held Telescope that would let you see the larger moons of Jupiter back home. They were also the ones who set out the fishing lines. They were able to reach their EX-5 Behemoth Explorer, after some extreme climbing in my main cargo hold. They say that they will be able to run the tests on anything we catch, to see if we can eat it or not." Bob stopped talking for a second, so that the other man might be able to get a word in edge wise. It just was good radio practice.

Kelly was smiling even bigger now. This was very good news, and it had come a whole lot quicker than he would have hoped it would. "Having something like an EX-5 is great. Its better having people around that know how to use it, and are willing to help out. The last bit is a whole lot better, in my book."

Bob smiled again a little bigger this time, and nodded at the phone even knowing that the other man would not see it. "Kelly picked up on that one quick," thought the head master of the huge cargo ship. "I know that they loaded two of those things, and at least one EX-9 Behemoth Super-Explorer before we left port. I have some of my crew digging around, but we have not found them yet. We are still looking for them. It's not like we have much else going on right now. I also will have my best cyber guy working on the disk that was in the bottom of my safe. I hope to have more news in the morning. What are you thinking is going to be our next step, Kelly?"

Kelly was listening and taking some notes on his hand held computer. He should have known that Bob would have had already thought of that. "Okay Bob, go ahead tell me, not to tell you how to suck eggs. How about you come over for breakfast tomorrow around 9 o'clock ships time, and we can compare notes on what to do next?" He could hear the other man give belly laugh on the other end of the line. It was the first laugh, Kelly had heard in what seemed like days.

"Well you have the live chickens, so if you're planning on having fresh eggs cooked over easy? Then I think I can be there at 9." Bob was liking this man more and more. He just might be able to work with him, if things were going to be as bad as he thought might turn out to be. At least for now, or the short term. Long term would have to wait until they had more information to work with.

For the rest of the night armed guards walked the deck of both ships. Only passive systems were used by the walking guards, and bridge to keep watch on the area around the two ships. Radar system can be seen farther than they can themselves see. And being on a strange world, did not mean that there were not pirates on these same waters. The night went quickly and quietly, the only action was on the fishing lines, which had been dropped over the sides of both ships into the cold water. They pulled over a half a dozen different fish types to the ships decks. That was until something broke all of the high tech fishing lines. Those same lines that was designed to catch 16ft sharks, back on their home planet. That ended the fishing for the night, it was mandated that anything they caught that night would not be eaten or even stored near food. What was caught, was then killed and carried down the narrow metal stairs and into an EX-5 Behemoth Explorer robot. A crew of sailors had worked hard and it had been partially exposed, from the surrounding cargo in the massive dark hull of the transport ship. The items that were pulled up on the Revenge deck had to be handled a little differently. They were photographed and put in sealed plastic containers on the open steel decks. They would be sent over to the other ship n a few hours after dawn, so that it could be also tested.


	5. Chapter 5

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Chapter 2 A Place to Stay**

 **Unknown star system**

 **Open seas**

 **Day 2 after Rift transport**

The sun started to rise on what would have been be the east, and unlike on Earth when the sun started to rise. It did not turn from the dark of night to light quickly, like what was normal for a sea side sunrise. It was more of a slow brightens as the sun moved higher in the sky. It would have been the start of a new duty shift, but with the change to a new planet? No one knew what "local time "it really was. The ships clock said 0900, but the sun was still not fully over the grey water horizon. The Captain of the Lucky Find flew over to the more heavily armed, but smaller ship, which had made the odd trip with him and his crew. The little transport VTOL landed on the makeshift secondary landing pad, which was set up on the flat cargo hatch over the Number 2, or forward cargo hold. The visiting officer waited for the blades of the helicopter to stop spinning. With the decapitation hazard stop, the warship's crew went in to tie the little vehicle to the hard deck plates. That was just in case a wave or storm came up out of the blue. A hard and steed fast rule on any ship, was that you tied everything down on deck as soon as it stopped moving. When it was tied down the young man walked over, and opened the side door of the helicopter for the Captain of the Lucky Find to exit.

The two people exited the small craft and separated as soon as they stepped off the temporary platform. One was going to the Captain's cabin, and the other one went to the main crew's mess hall. Both were looking for some hot food, to fight the chill in the early morning air. The Lucky Find's Commanding Officer had been on this ship before, and had no problem finding his way around. He could do it even without an escort to where he wanted to go. The door he was looking for was open to the corridor, but he knocked on the hard gray metal frame all the same. He only advanced when the voice in the room answered the knock. The voice was not from whom he expected, but he enters the room anyway. When Bob cleared the door frame he noticed that a dining table had been set, but the other ship's captain was not in the main room. A young female steward exited the room past him, and gave the older person a friendly smile in passing. When Bob looked around cabin, he tried to take everything in. He saw the commander of the convoy was removing the wrinkles in his uniform top with a hand iron in his small bathroom, off to one side of the main cabin. Bob knew personally that a lot of other ships Captains, had one of their other crewmembers take care of task like this. It would seem that this Captain was not one of them. More and information in his briefing packet and what he had found on his own was being proven true.

Bob thought that he would poke the other man and see what happened. It was a dangerous game after everything that they had been through, he knew. "You know Kelly that you have a very capable steward assigned to you for a reason?" Captain Kelly looked up from what he was doing, to see the other man propped up against the hatch seal between his bathroom and office. Kelly tilted his head down somewhat, so he was looking down his nose at the other man. It was a very calculated look that he had worked on for years. He was copying a look he had been on the receiving end of from his grandfather a number of times growing up.

"I can take care of myself thank you very much Bob, and I don't need a babysitter either. Everyone in my crew have jobs that need to be done, that's why I hired them in the first place. Cleaning my cloths is not one of them." He said it pricklier than he needed to, but it had been a stressful week already. That was even before they got dumped on this strange ocean after a major naval battle. Kelly picked up his uniform top and put in on, still warm from the iron. He was attaching the coat closer, and walking out of the main room with the metal hatch swinging closed behind him. "Thanks for coming over Bob." Kelly was pointing toward the seat at the table. "Let's have a hot meal, before it goes to waist or gets cold. We can talk and eat at the same time don't you think?"

The meal was simple, but as asked for. They had fresh eggs as the center part of the still warm meal. While they were eating, both men also pulled out there personnel computers. Bob was the first to bring up work at the table. "Kelly I have some bad news about that that encrypted data disk from my safe. When he hit a firewall and did not have the right password the very first time? It destroyed all the information, and files on the damn thing. I guess my bosses, wanted to make sure that no one tried to be nosey on the way out." Bob used his finger to flip to a new page of information on the electronic device. "Now that we have some better light, my crew is going to try to find out what they can in our cargo hold without damaging anything else. I pass orders that it was more important that we don't break things than knowing what we have, so it's going to take some time. I do know that we have four female live goats and two live female sheep all pregnant. They came some frozen embryos for each animal, also we have some other biologic samples that I have no idea what they are yet. I think we are going to be missing beef steaks, if we can't get back home in a few weeks."

Captain Kelly made a face but this was not that big of a surprise to find out that the file was booby trapped, but it was worth a shot. Now they would have to find out the hard way what they were carrying. They were going to need some at least some semi flat land to do it. Kelly also made notes about the live animals that the other vessel carried. That information would be added to their slowly growing list of their known resources. "I was afraid of that. So how did your set of Rogue's scientist do last night?"

Bob smiled back, at least this would be some good news to give. He finished the bit of fried egg and pickles he was chewing on before talking. "They did catch some of what they are calling "fish analogs", and we can digest the proteins, if we cook them. They have no idea what they are going to taste like, but that will help extend our protein supplies. They had to call it quits kind of early last night, because something caught us. It broke both sets of fishing lines, trying to pull my ship down. I don't think we will be running out of that type of food in the rear future. As long as we have supplies of fishing line and hooks."

Kelly stopped chewing for a few seconds and swallowed his mouth full of food. Now that he was talking without his mouth displaying something gross or unsettling. "Same thing happened to us last night. I wonder if it was the same thing that took us out. Joe was pretty unhappy about losing the lines, he was squawking about not being able to replace them to many more times. He had used one of those same lines to land a 16 foot Great White shark last year. It must have been some kind of huge "fish". Maybe it was better that they lost those lines, instead of trying to land whatever it was on our decks. We will be sending over images and the carcasses they pulled up out of the water, before we lost our lines in an hour or so. I told them to report to your XO with all of the coolers and data. Would you prefer they contact someone else?" A ships XO or Second Officers was a very over worked job position and it sometime was a catch all when something odd happened.

Bob shrugged his shoulders, and swallowed another bit of hot food. "No, that would be okay." He stopped talking and then shrugged again. "On second thought, why don't they just hook up a sling load to my chopper, and I can take it back with me. Why make two trips, if we don't have to."

Kelly nodded and picked up a push to talk radio that was on the side of the table. He passed along to bridge, to have a sling load set up for the Lucky Find's helicopter to take back to her home hangar. "That makes a lot more since Bob, and it would not use that much more fuel. It also is faster and safer. The sooner we can have a list of "safe" to eat fish, the better our long term supply situation will be. You talked about making some kind of telescope last night. Any idea how that is working out? I heard about using sky telescopes before, but I never have used a real one before. Are they that much better than field glasses? What about your damage done by those Dolphin drones? How are your repairs coming? I can send some of my Damage Control personnel over, if you need them."

Bob gave a cocky grin. "After we lost the lines, the rogues got bored and finished making the telescope. They were even able to rig the telescope up last night, before the sun started to come up. They even had made, and put up a cover to "protect it" last night. That bit of where was done by some of my off duty crew. Now this is all a guess right now, and they must have told me that a few hundred times before I came over here. But right now they are thinking this star system, is hidden in a nebula of some kind. Or it is so close to a nebula that it does not matter that much. They pretty much agree that this is not Earth in any shape, form, or history, that they know of or heard a theory of." Bob stopped talking and put his silverware down on the metal table top. "Kelly I will tell you one thing. I have never heard of three scientist agreeing to any one thing in my life, before this morning. I don't know if that scares me or reassures me?"

Bob used the open time to put some more of the hot food in his mouth before it got cold, and let this next statement work threw the other Captain's brain. "We also have about ¾ fuel load left in the tanks, but we only have one prop and hub. We used a lot more fuel than normal, on that high speed running battle. We will have an extra engine for parts or other uses, just in case something bad happens down the road. We now have four extra electrical generators because we can't use Number 1 Main, so we have plenty of spares for the other four electrical generators for some time. That is not counting the spares parts, we had on hand before we lost the one of the mains."

That was about what Kelly had thought and feared, when he had seen the lack of recognized stars over his head last night. He wanted to back track a little bit to address a more short term problem with Bob. "Well speaking back about live food. We have the 24 young hens and one rooster, but those are the only animals we have on board. We have enough supplies on hand to feed all 400 personnel of my crew, for another fifteen days. That is unless, I order a cut in rations. This is, before I have to break into our emergency supplies or the hydroponics. That would have been enough to make to Norfolk and back, even if we could not have picked up fresh food in that port for some reason. I am hoping that we have some long term storage foods, which I think was loaded back at port for dropping off in Norfolk. I checked with some of my deck crews. And they said that they thought some was loaded into both of our ships, so now we just have to find it."

Kelly had to stop talking because they were interrupted by the VOTLs on the main pad running were spinning up its rotors. It was not long before they took off for its part in mapping the surrounding area. After they left, the noise dropped back down to a more normal level. Kelly started back up with their little but important meeting. "So how are you set for supplies and do you have any issues, I might be able to help with?"

Bob was going to bring it up later, but this was what the other commander wanted to know now so he set the fork down after taking a final bite. "On my ship we have the 3,000 colonist and 150 crewmembers. We have about ten days' worth of food supplies on hand for my crew. I only carried five days of contingence supplies laid in for the colonist." Bob shrugged his shoulders a little and looked away from the other Captain. "I just did not have the extra cargo space for that much extra food. I have ordered the food to be rationed out, starting at the noon meal today. I really don't want to reach into my emergency food or the hydroponics garden, yet. Kelly I know you worked with the CS a few times in the past, but my company has always wanted people who did their jobs well. They do not care if your human, a magic user, or D-Bee. So some questions have come up from my crew to me, last night. I need the cards on the table on what to expect from you."

Captain Kelly was looking at the other man, but he did not even put his fork down on his plate. "Bob, I have never cared about things like, where someone came from. As long as they did their jobs, and as long as they were not prone to being an evil bastard. It's not an issues for me, or the crew's that I ship out with. If someone on my crew had a problem with something like that, then they would find themselves off of my deck. I will say that before we took this mission, I had put my D-Bees crewmembers, and most of my people with knowledge of magic skills, ashore. Just because of how close were would be to the CS Navy. I did not want to take the chance of them being found out, and "interred" by the Coalition. Also think about this. On this world we are the D-Bees, so let's hope we do not find any CS equivalent that might have set up shop here. When we make land fall, we will work on some rules, but as long as people obey my rules. I don't think we will have a problem, if something comes up and you don't like one or some of my rules. We will just have to work something out, I am still the escort commander and convoy commander, but I don't have a god complex. Or at least I don't think I do any way. Is that good enough for now?" Kelly still had the knife and fork in his hands as he was explaining these items to the other officer.

Kelly finally put down his silverware and reached down to one side of the table, out of sight of the other Captain. He pulled out a card stock coved, small booklet from a leg side cargo pocket. He passed it over to the other man across the table. "This is a copy of my ships rules. Please review them, and if you have any questions let me know ASAP. If you're good with them, please post them for everyone to see and read. If you would please. I also want you to look closely at the last dozen pages in this copy. It's just a base of an idea that I worked out a few years back. It's not set in stone or anything, just a base of an idea so any input would be welcome. We need to work out the rules that we all can live with, so if you want to focus on that. I think it would be a good first step."

Bob leaned over and took the black covered book, and quickly flipped through the pages. "I will do that. Now the main reason I wanted to ask, is that I have had some of my Magic user came to me early is morning. They and I did not want to bring this up, if you were adamant anti-magic user like the CS. What they told is that the best way to can explain it. Is that they feel like something is missing in their souls. They each had tried different spells all night, and nothing seems to be working for any of them. They said it feels like they might have had their magic skills turned off somehow." Bob was not comfortable talking to Kelly about this issue, he needed facts, so that he might be able to help a certain population of his crew in distress.

Kelly's stopped eating again and put his fork down on the cloth covered table. "I had talked to an ocean mage that works on board, and he told me about the same thing you just did. He was very powerful, but is completely human by looking at him. He was the one that was able to break up the storm clouds the slavers were using as cover. Anyway, the way he explained it. It was that the "battery" that allows him to cast spells is completely depleted. He asked for some time off shift, so that he could "recharge" it. I will have to check the rest of the crew to see if this is affecting them all. He is supposed to check in with me in 48 hours to see if he was able to fix his "battery". I will make sure, I let you know how that turns out." He stopped talking then he went lost in thought for a few seconds and was almost glassy eyed. "From what I read from a few Pre-Rifts books, people who could use magic back then were very rare. Like one in a million rare or maybe even fewer than that. Maybe it's the same on this planet, if the Rifts are not constant then maybe that is true of all magic." Kelly did not finish his thought, but he could have said a lot more. He was just not that sure if it would make any sense to anyone outside of his own brain.

The rest of the meal and almost two hours later, the meeting went on. With the two men filling in each other on the finer points of the information, that each had found out so far. Both need to know as much as they could. That is if they were going to save as many of their people as they could for as long as they could. Between comments Bob started reviewing the book of rules passed to him. He had not completed the review, but he had made head way and had only a few questions that he did bring up. So far he had not have any big issues with the suggested rules, so far.

After the meal was completed and meeting over. They walked together up to the warship's bridge. Some minutes later, it was while they were looking at the updating plot table. That one of the flying units called out the first" Land Fall" sighting since they came to this world. It did not take long for more reports to come in, and data sent back to mother ships. The plotting table now started to show a growing outline of land that turned out to be a barrier island chain. All of this was data sent by one flying suit. It was a good built up, for the later data dumps. A second and then a third report were called in later as more information came in. The data coming in was showing more land past the low lying island chain, it was bigger than an island in the before seen island chain.

Kelly looked over at Bob with plotting glass in front of both men. "Well, it's about 500 miles from here. The buoy we drop as radio that has a range of at least 1200 miles even under extreme conditions. We can pick up any reports, if the Rift shows back up from that lactation. Do you agree that both ships should go and check it out?" By law Kelly could have just ordered the other ship to do something. Kelly would do just that just that, if he felt like he needed to. But this was one of those rare times, were he could present the issues as a question and not as an order.

Bob looked back at the other man, and then back at the updating plotting table. Then back to the other ships master. He gave a slight nod of his head to show that he agreed with what Kelly had suggested. Kelly took the motion and was ready to give orders. "Bob, I need you raise the Sea anchors and come to course 270. Do you think you can maintain 10 mph, without over straining you one shaft or burning threw to much fuel? What is your most economical speed with only one engine by the way?" Working with or long term commanding liquid fueled ships was not normal for Captain Kelly, and he did not mind asking questions.

Bob was in full professional mode, and addressed the other ships commander. "Captain Kelly, we should be able make up to 12 mph. That's right at the 80% power setting on the one engine. At this level of sea state, and our loaded GWT. It still will be the most economical in both fuel used per mile and time." He did not cover that the one engine had already been strained badly on the run from the slavers. That would have to be addressed later. When they had time, or when the engine attached to the one shaft gave up the ghost and had to be shut down for good.

Kelly nodded at the other man, he did not know if he was being fully truthful or not. He was just going to have to risk it. "10 MPH would be good enough for now, Captain. We will be recalling our scouts before we start to do any major moves. They will need to catch back up to us, and the ones 180 degrees out from our path will have to both catch, and find a pair of moving target on a strange ocean. Some might not be able to catch up till after dark, I would rather not risk that right now. When we have all the chicks collected. Then we can pick more up speed, if we need to. Does that work?" Captain Kelly was looking at the other Captain and was waiting for a replay.

The other man nodded in agreement but, he was mentally kicking himself, about the airborne scouting units having problems finding home base. "Okay, I hadn't thought about that. I'm not use to having any units, which are that far away from my command. I'll go find my pilot and be on my way, Captain. I should be able to get under way in a half an hour or less." He held out his hand and the two men shook hands, before separating and going about what needed to be done. With this bit of face to face time complete, now they could start the next part of their adventure together.

The rest of the day went without any major or earth shattering issues, just the normal operational type of issues. That was what a ship's staff were made to address. As soon as the VTOL with the Lucky Find's Captain and its sling load of "fish" landed on the larger cargo ship. Her master went like a whirlwind through his bridge. The one engine that was still connected to a prop, was warmed up and hydraulics brought back up to operational pressure. The warming up was not wasted fuel, because it turned the electric generators that recharged the ships back up batteries. Those same batteries that had been running all of the ships systems, during the night and part of the day. While the engine and its maintainers were doing their job. A deck crew was working on getting the sea anchors pulled in, and attached to the deck near one of the four crane bases. It would have been easier and quicker just to have cut the chains and let the whole mess fall into the gray water. The one problem was that they did not know when they would have access to more heavy chain, or be able to replace the material they used to make the sea anchors with. True to her Captains word the massive 650 foot long cargo/passenger ship, was ready to move, 30 minutes after his helicopter had landed back on his ship landing pad.

They were just two ships making their way slowly to the coast line of the continent, in what there built in compasses said was a more or less westerly direction. They had no idea if it was right, but it was in the direction of the setting sun on this planet. The call had gone out for 1/3 of the scout units to return to the ships, before they had started to move again. The only scouts that were recalled early were the ones that might not be able to catch up to the ships. That is before their engines would overheated, and cause major damage their engines. So far none of the scouts had seen or reported any signs of a high tech civilization on the ground, in the water or in the air. Captain Kelly was not taking any chances. He still did not want to advertise their presence by turning on the very powerful onboard radar systems. It was only by passive systems and old mark one and mark two eye balls that they scouted the quiet sea around them as they moved upon it.

When it seemed that the sun would set in a few hours, the recall orders were sent to all the remaining flying scout units, which were still out looking around. The two ships steamed, as the term went, "all night long". It was hope that it would make up for the slower speed that they were forced to keep, due to the damaged Lucky Find. Also during the night, the old school weather tools let them know a storm was passing near them. It was not a major storm, but no one on the two ships knew how bad storms could be on this planet. And they did not want to find out this soon with battle damage still not fully repaired. They had only hand full of hours on this world so far. A few inch drop in mercury might be very bad or not so bad as far as a storm went. The two Captains took the storm overly serious, but in Captain Kelly's heart he looked at it as simply good training. The next storm they might have to run through might be real monster and preparing for a storm was good practice.

When the storm lifted, the much reduced convoy was only twenty miles off the outlying or barrier island chain. It was just as the sun was just starting to rise behind them that land fall was called out by a crewmen standing watch in an old fashioned crow's nest high above the Revenge. They were far enough out, that the depth gages would not let them know if they were close to the coast or not. The water under the pair's hulls, was almost as deep as the location where they came through the Rift at. Captain Kelly called the Find on flashing lights and the brought the two ships to a halt, and let them drift along in the current. This was while he launched the days scout force. They went out to see if the islands had anyone living on, or nearby on any of the other low lying islands. The scouts spent the next half of the day making the low level passes over the small island chain. The island spread out in three different directions from where the two ships drifted. They did not find any evidence of occupation or exploitation. The scouts did find a deep water channel that would make it easier for both deep sea boats to get closer to the coast of the mainland, and to one of the larger island a bit safer.

It took the rest of the day for the two ships to make it to the relative safety of the protected waterway between a set of low tree and grass coved sandy islands, and the larger tree covered Main Island. When one of the flying scouts reported a protected bay on the main land that would be 180 degrees course change from them. Kelly was about to order the ships to make the turn towards what looked like a mainland continent. Kelly was stopped when the Captain of the other ships used a short ranged radio to contact him. This was a sign that it was import, or short notice, or both. Otherwise they would have used the slower blinking light method to pass information to him or his staff. They were still operating under strict ECCOM

Kelly pulled the push to talk radio out of its cradle. "Well this must be important, if Bob is calling me on the little hand held radio instead of using the wink lights." Captain Kelly walked out on to the bridge wing that was closest to the other ship. "Bob this is Kelly. What can I do for you?"

The low powered radio was a push to talk and had a lot of back ground static, but the other man's voice came through clearly. "Kelly, I have John Stapp standing on my Bridge and he wants to unload his machine. He would like to wade the machine ashore to these Barrier Islands. He said it will be safer, because we have not seen any land animals in all of our overflights. He says that Barrier islands in this type of island chains normally do not have large predators due to their small size, so he says. I told him if we did that we would have to leave him and his crew on the island. Or we all would have to stay and wait for him to compete his survey. He said it would be worth the time to see if the land flora is safe for us to be around." A burst of stronger sounding static come over the radio when Bob released the button for a few seconds. "Kelly, I think it might be worth it. It's not like we are on a time schedule anything. And the water is shallow enough, I can drop an anchor in and not bust my hull bottom. That would save on the fuel we would have to use, in just keeping at steerage speed this close to shallow water."

Kelly was also thinking about it as the static filled the air from the small speaker. After all it was not like they were pressed for time, and any information they could gather could be useful. "Bob, how long would it take you to put his machine in the water? Is there a reason you do not want to use the Sandfish, which you have as supper cargo? Do you a need a different cove or something you need to anchor in?" The Lucky Find was a ship that needed a lot more water under her hull to be safe than, by almost four times what Kelly was used to. She also was a lot longer and heaver ship than the Revenge. Kelly did not know what where the minimum requirements of the other ship, and he had no problem asking the other Captain to take him to school.

Bob was laughing on the other end of the radio, and some of it would carry over the air waves back to the warship. "We will need about an hour to get it rigged up to drop over the side. I think that if we just headed slowly toward the larger island. We will keep an eye on the depth finder, and stop when the water starts to shallow out. We should be good with that. We can take a few lead soundings as we go, but as long as the ground is hard enough we can just drop anchor. I thought you would agree, that it was worthwhile. I did offered to land his machine using the Sandfish, but he said that he would like to explore some before hitting the dry beach. They what to know what is under the water, on their way to beach and surf zone. He said it would help them when it was time to compare it, to what if farther inland on the islands or on the mainland.

Kelly smiled and repressed the button again. "Bob why don't you lead the way, and we will fallow behind you. Until you find a place you like and claim it. The Find needs more water than we do so you get to have first pick. After you drop the good Scientist and his crew over board, I will drop anchor and keep a couple of EPA's over the side as a guard force. If we're in water that shallow and if we are being watched? Any locals we have not seen might try something then. How close is too close to anchor together in this type of area?" Kelly had a good idea of how close he could get but, this was outside of his experience.

Bob looked at the push to talk, then looked across the water, but he could not see Kelly on the other Bridge Wing at this distance. He knew Kelly was on the Bridge Wing, they just were too far to see something, as small as a human torso and head from this distance. "I think we need to be about a quarter mile out and about that far apart, but no farther. If any of our anchors slip it would give the duty crews time to fix it, before anything major might end up dented."

Kelly agreed and signed off talking to the other Captain. He had work to do, that only a ships master was supposed to do. The two ships may have been some of the largest ships still crewed by humans on Earth. However on this new world they were just a pair of specks, that disappeared on the open gray wave tossed water. If anyone had been looking from high above. They would only have seen to two knifed shaped ships turn to the direction that the local sun would rise in the morning. The pair were moving so slow that they did not generate much of a wake behind them as they moved. They were moving closer to the shore, with the leading ship that was loaded with cargo in the front. They only stopped when the water depth was reading only 45 ft. from ship's metal bottom to sea sand bed below. As soon as the anchor was dropped from the bow and stern on the two ships. The chains ran with dust flying off the metal chain links, until the chain stopped moving. Then the anchors were put under tension by the ships powered wenches. This was so that the crews could see how well they would hold up under the forces generated by the current or any storms/winds, which might come up in the night.

When the Luck Find's master was happy with the anchor situation, he Okayed the next part of the operation to begin. The crane that had access to the Number One Cargo Hold on the larger of the two ships, stated to move over the slowly opening metal lid of a cargo hold. The crane slowly lowered a set of heavy duty lifting wires out of sight into the dark cave. When the end of the cables return to being visible, by those not inside the cargo hold. It was lifting a large metal rectangle object with two long legs metal legs attached to the bottom of the rectangle hull. At one end of a hunch back like attachment on top of the strange device were items that only the operators knew the functions of. It had two small arms mounted on the front of the dedicated explorer manned robot. The center mounted crane pivoted on its thick fixed base, and stated to lower the 25 ton and 60 foot tall machine into the shallow water off the portside of the ship. The Lucky Find was closer to the shoreline of the pair of floating ships. Kelly like were his ship was anchored at, because it let me "see" better out to sea. The odd shaped manned robot, disappeared below the cold gray water without much fanfare. There were not even bubbles to celebrate the start of a new mission for machine and crew. One second it was there with the small waves lapping at the manned walking laboratory's sides, and the next it was gone from view. It was visible only by the paired lifting cables coming out of the water to the tall lifting arm of the ship mounted crane.

The large machine was completely under the water for a few moments, then the lifting straps came back up, dripping water after it cleared the grey water. Nothing happened that was visible by the crew and passengers that crowed the deck of the combined passenger and cargo transport. Most were there just because they had nothing better to do. It was different enough, so that it might break their growing boredom. They were soon disappointed at the lack of action and stated drifting off for other pursuits. It took a while before the machine broke the gray water's surface, now a lot closer to the windblown sands of the beach. The rails of both ships were still thinly lined by some people. They were the ones who wished they were the ones going for a walk on dry land, as the manned robot walked around the shallow water. No matter how much Captain Kelly wished the doctor and his team would make a straight line or even a straightish line to the beach, they did not. The pilot at the controls walking machine, had his own idea, and more or less randomly wonder around in the water' edge for a couple of hours. Before making it all the way on to the dry breach of the island.

Now that the one machine was out of the water. Captain Kelly waved to two of his deck crew, who then walked up to two open EPA's on the deck of his ship. The two 8 foot tall, now manned machines, launched the almost 2000 pounds of their high tech gear into the air. They went up at an angel and were over the sides of the ship, and into the gray water below in a few seconds. The PA-100 Mauler's were still new to the Collation States, but Captain Kelly had worked closely with the CS Navy side of that government for more than a few years. When he had asked for a few of the newest machines that were optimized to fight under water? They had given them to him without that much extra money needing to change hands. They were listed on the CS accounting books "as leasing for review by technical experts and for developing underwater and ship born tactics". In truth the machines never would have made it back to the CS Navy, even if Captain Kelly and his ship had stayed on old Rifts Earth. He had not even needed to pay full price for them, less black market price for the group of machines. Now a pair were on guard duty 70 feet under the water for the next six hours. They would be rotated out with another pair of the machines at the end of that shift. Kelly would keep eyes and weapons on guard, till just before they were ready to lift anchor again.

Captain Kelly had his bridge staff keep both an eye, and an ear out as the massive science focused machine walking and scouting the 30 mile long island. When Doctor Sapp, who was in command of that machine. Had radioed in to ask the next morning, if they could stay out. Captain Kelly had anticipated the question. He had left word that if the Doctor had no emergency, then they could say out for another 24 hours. In the note he had left with his staff, he also let them know. If they were wanting to stay a third day on that island. Then they were going to have to brief the staffs of each ship, on why they wanted to extension. Kelly knew that 99,999 percent of people would rather have a finger removed than have to brief their bosses on why they wanted something. Unless of course that it was very bloody important, then all bets were off. The flying scouts were still out flying, mapping farther and farther out from the parent ships. About the only things the scouts had found so far were lots of trees, snow and that the day/night cycle on this planet was about 24 hours long.

The ground scout was finished up just before full night fall on the low lying island. When they called in the Scientist said that they were not sure, that they would be able to hock up the lifting cables in the dark. The Lucky Finds XO Sophia Ryan, who was the duty officer when the call had come in, had agreed with them. They spend the last night on the cold beach and ready to go at first light. They walked there massive machine, back into the gray cold water. It was only a few long steps, and then the scientist were complexly underwater, carried by their massive walking machine. In the end they still could not get the cables fitted properly to the points on their machine. A deck hand in a Chipwell CAI-50 Challenger suit, had to jump down into the cold water and do the job for them. The Chipwell made suit could not return to the deck by jumping. It had to catch a ride back to the surface of the water on the back of the bigger machine. The pair were lifted out of the water by the deck mounted crane. The time was well used by the flying scouts sent out form the ships that morning. They now had a pretty detailed map of an area, for about 200 miles around the two ships in every direction. It had been completed, and loaded on all the computers aboard both ships and the flying scouts. From here everyone could see if, they wanted to take the time to look. Unfortunately it was not announced, so very few people saw until days later.

It was not long before the large machine was being tied down as deck cargo this time. That way it would be faster to get to, the next time when it was needed. The way things were looking. They were going to need the massive walking exploration unit sooner, rather than later. It was not as safe, tied to the deck, as if it had been reloaded in the metal protected hold. It would, in this new location. Make it a lot easier to access the built in labs, or off loaded again for another scout mission. A cove that seemed to have deep enough water had been mapped, that lay 150 miles north of their current position. The two ships had set sail towards it, as soon as the walking explorer had been lifted from the cold water. Captain Kelly was trying to come up with a plans that were both short and long, while the ship were moving through the water. The crews and passengers on both ships were getting restless, not being able to get out of the metal hulls. The passengers, who were to have been off loaded already by this date, and tempers were just starting to fray already. He had a base outline plan written out by the time the two ships dropped anchor outside the little cove. As it turned out the cove was just a little too shallow to risk going inside the protected waters, when the two ships arrived. Without knowing how much the tides might change overnight, it was better to be safe than sorry. The anchors were dropped in deeper water outside the cove for the night. It was not like they could call over a tug or two help them out, if they got into any trouble in the cove. Instead of having a few people in EPA's to stand watch that night. All four min-subs that the Revenge carried were launched to guard the ships from below. Captain Kelly gave them another mission as well, it was to scout the sea floor during the long cold and dark night.

It was early the next morning John and June Stapp, along with the rest of their small crew were lowered into the cold gray water again. With their exploring machine fully under water, they were in for the long walk ashore. This time they would not be going alone on their scouting mission. Captain Kelly had vetoed the idea of going ashore alone, when it had been brought up to him. While they had not seen any threats on the island. This was a lot larger are, and an escort, therefor was required in Kelly's opinion. Captain Kelly asked for volunteers but settled on the two Maulers, when the list was on to its second page and still growing. The Maulers were chosen to help put, just because they were the easiest to get over the side than anything else right now. The small group would be stay out the full 48 hours that this scouting mission was planned for. After the three machines were well on their way for a long 48 hours. Captain Kelly addressed the sum total of the people under his command. He included the crew and passengers of the Luck Find, as people under his direct command now. He told them that if this scouting mission turned out to be clean. Then they would start landing personnel as soon as they could. He felt that he had to reinforce that they were still close enough to buoy to detect any activity. If the Rift came back, but they needed to set up some kind of community. That is if they wanted to survive however long it took for the Rift to show back up on this cold planet. In his address he made sure to make a comment that he knew living quarters were tight. They just needed to hold out a little longer. Then they could start working on that issue, along with a long list of other items that needed to be taken care of before things got out of hand.

It was around 0010 on the ships clock when an electronic message made it to Captain Kelly's electronic "In queue". He had an open door policy that was published and fully briefed to each of his personnel, when they signed on for a tour. His crew knew that if they felt like they needed to, anyone could ask to see the Captain for any reason. That is unless it was during a ship wide emergency, but time would be made available for the crewmember see the ship's master. The Captain was not awake when the message came in, and he had a full work load the next day. He did not get to the reading the actual message, until he was half way done eating his midday meal. Dexter Woods was a sensitive, which was known for his remote viewing skill. He also had other skills that made him a great asset to the 5 inch cannon crew, he was assigned to. Kelly hoped it was not another request to land on the first boat. Or another one, wanting to find out, what he know about the entire magic user crews how having lost ability to perform magic of any kind. Those had been the top of the list of questions, which he had been fielding for the last few days.

The meeting with Dexter Woods was set on the Captains schedule for Dexter's work shift. Kelly could have just sent a message to have Dexter report to his Day Cabin. Kelly did not want to do that, and leave a gun crew shorthanded at a high threat time. It was the first time that Captain Kelly had open on his seclude, and he walking down to the weapon mount. It was nice to stretch his legs a bit beside the bridge to cabin loop he had been locked into. Captain Kelly walked down to the weapons turret at a steady pace. He pushed the buzzer mounted on the outside armor at the back mounted hatch, that allowed access to the gun and crew. The gun captain was one who answered the call button, on Kelly's third push of the device. He did it by just swinging open the heavy blast door to the cool outside salt air. It stopped with a loud thud as it hit the stops mounted on the turret side, that were put there to keep hatch from crashing into the hard metal cover.

Paul Carr was not expecting to see the commander of the ship, waiting on him to open the hatch. So it was not surprise that it took him a handful of seconds to get his mind and mouth working again, before he said something that he might have regretted later. "Ah sorry sir. Didn't know it was you on the button. Ah what can I do for you, sir?"

Captain Kelly looked up at the other man, and held out his hand in friendship. Paul was a steady man even under heavy stress. It was when he was not in those situations, that he had some issues that were hard to deal with sometimes. "Paul, I would like to talk to Dexter for a few minutes. Would you please have him meet me out here, if you please?" The statement was formed as a question, but it was an order from the Ships Commander. The right hand of god, at least in the minds of most of the long term crewmembers of this ship, which is how they thought of Captain Kelly.

Paul Carr locked hands with the Captain and after a mid-strength clench and single pump. He released the offered hand and raised his hand to his hair line, before returning into the dark of the weapons mount. The crewmember Dexter exited out the hatch less than two minutes later, and stated looking around for his Commander. He saw the Captain leaning against the raised hatch that held the heavy plate that sealed the nearby cargo hold, from any outside air and water contamination. Dexter hands patted down a few imaginary wrinkles on his work jumpsuit, before walking over to the right hand of god. Dexter stepped down from the turret mount and shot a look over his shoulder to see the Gun Captain watching him. Paul gave the other unfortunate man a nod of his head, then reentered gun turret and closed the hatch behind him.

As soon as the metal turret hatch closed behind him, Dexter started rapid fire talking, and was almost hyperventilating. "Sir, thank you for seeing me! I know you have a full plate with everything going on." He was trying not to stammer, but he was having a hard time getting to the point of why, he needed to see his commander. It had not been in the message he had sent the other night. "Sir, you know that I have skills sometimes. And well a lot of the other guys have been having problems using there's since we Rifted here. Mine seems to have gotten stronger than ever, not weaker. I messing this up." He was shaking his head and looking down that the deck plates, and was taking shallow rapid breaths, as he fought to work out how to say what he felt like he had to say.

Kelly could see the sweat beading up on Dexter's forehead, he was about to try to say something to try to calm him down. That was when Dexter seemed to get his mind back on track and tried again. "Sir, will you please look at this?" Dexter reached into his left cargo pocket on the pants part of his working jumpsuit, and pulled out some folded sheets of marked up paper.

When he stated unfolding the sheets. Captain Kelly could tell it was many sheets and they were attached together to make one large sheet, called a map sheet. It was an impress bit of work to have Australian folded all of that paper. "I started getting these dreams, and I just would start drawing the parts I could remember when I woke up. It was the other night I tried something different. I fell asleep with a marker and paper on my bed, with me. When I woke up, I had sheet and sheets of stuff of written and drawn out stuff that I don't remember doing. It looks to me to be like a map of some kind, but I don't know. That when I sent the message that I needed to see you. I just figured it. In one of those, kind of an "oh that is what it is" moment. I spent the rest of my off time putting them together like a puzzle. What do you think sir?" Dexter bit his lip, and would not look up at his Commander. His was head down, because he thought he might know the answer to the question he was about to ask. "Sir, Am I going crazy?" Dexter stopped talking and waited for the replay slowly rocking from side to side on the still metal deck.

Captain Kelly helped Dexter flatten out the papers, and try to figure out what was going on. Having grown up on Rifts Earth, he had learned at an early age never to just ignore when something strange happened or was claimed. It was a case of trust, but verify before any money changed hands. Con artist were alive, and very much well even after the fall of the human race into the Dark Ages. The folder paper looked like a map, and it looked like it was very detailed. It looked to be done to a scale that was marked at the bottom of one of the pages at the far edge of the black ink lines. The breeze was making the job of hold the pages down a pain. Kelly called over two nearby crewmembers, to help hold the moving paper in one place. He needed to concentrate on what was on the six foot by six foot sheet of blacking ink covered paper.

Now that the huge page was not moving as much. They were now both able to get a better look at the design, when Dexter pointed to one section of the map. "Sir this looked like that low set of islands we stopped at the other day, to me. I was on duty and use the laser range finder on a few of the more distinguishable land mark, just in case, to have the ranges ready to provide supporting fires. It looks like they matched up pretty good, at least to what I remembered of the numbers. They have been cleared out of the fire control computer already."

Now that Captain Kelly's eye was draw to a starting point. He quickly mentally traced the course the two ships had taken to the mainland, and their current location anchored off the Main Land. There were land marks, also marked on the paper map. Which the Captain did not remember from the data provided by flying over scouts. He needed to check this paper map against what the bridge crew had been putting together on the electronic plotting board. This looked to be solid gold in the information realm, if it was true that is. Kelly was starting to mentally kick himself for not coming down soon to address Dexter email. The nice thing about hind sight, is that it's 20/20.

"Dexter why don't you refold this, while I let Paul know that you're going to be working on the bridge with me for the rest of your shift." Kelly released the two paper holder helpers. So that they could return to whatever it was they had been doing. Before he had called them over to help hold the paper down in the wind. The pair left with a nod, this information would be supplied to the ship wide rumor mill before Dexter entered the Bridge with Captain Kelly. Kelly did not think about that until a few hours later.

Captain Kelly turned to walk back to the weapons mount's hatch. This time he did not use the buzzer. He opened it, but not fully to the stops like the Gun Captain had done. He then used his outside voice, so that it would carry over the sounds of someone making repairs in the weapons mount. "Hey Paul, Dexter is going up to the bridge. I don't think he will be back for the rest of his watch. I will drop a line to you, if he is going to miss his next shift by the end of this one."

Kelly heard a muffled grunt, which was about all he needed to hear to know that he had been heard. It was unspoken that if the ship went to General Quarters. Dexter, would have broken his own neck trying to make it back to the weapons mount, no matter what the Captain had said. The two men walked back to the bridge without talking to each other along the way. Captain Kelly would stop and glad hand the crew, as he walked back with Dexter in silent tow behind him. This was the first time that Dexter had been on the bridge, well since he was hired onto the crew of the ship a little over four years ago. No one went on the bridge without a need to be there. It was the domain of the Captain, XO and any trespassers had better beware. When Dexter entered the brain center of the ship, he was given the once over by the staffers eyes. He was with the Captain and that was good enough for them, and they would not even ask why. If they had not agreed to the trespasser into their domain? It would not have matter on bit to the Captain. If Dexter had tried to enter without the Captain? It would have been a different story, all to gather. The metal stairs outside of the access way into the bridge, were very hard and unforgiving to most body parts as they bounded down them.

Captain Kelly pointed to the plotting table, when he heard Dexter's feet hit the deck of the Bridge. "Dexter why don't you show Joann and Tony your map, I will be other there in a few minutes." The Captain went around the bridge, and checked with each station in the Bridge/CIC of the odd vessel. This had two functions. One was to update him on any changes that might have happened while he had been out, but had been deemed not important enough to contact him about. The Second reason? Was to give Dexter time to get ready without Kelly looking over the shoulder, and putting more stress on him. More stress might push Dexter to or over his mental breaking point. When he returned to the plotting table, the three were deep in conversation. Kelly walked up on them on quite shoes, so that he could try to hear what was being said without any of them knowing it. He quickly found out that, it was not going to work this time. He could not make out but one word in ten, maybe.

"Okay what have we got?" Asked Kelly as he put both of his fist on his hips and looked around the bridge's plotting and map table. This one was a table top model, and not the vertical mounted display they had been using to track the battle. When at battle stations this table was deactivated and moved out of the way to increase space between systems.

Tony looked up at the sound of the voice that belong to his commander. He almost jumped out of his skin at the sound coming from his back. He was so focused on the information in front of him, that he had not noticed his boss walk up beside him. He did not take long to get his feet back under him and recover with an answer. "Sir this is a very detailed map, and I mean to an amazing level of detail." He pointed to a hill top on the paper map, which was in the general area he had been staring at when Kelly walked up on them. "We would like to check out how accurate it might be. That hill has not been digitally map yet, by any of our scouts. We would like your permission, to divert one of the flying scouts that way. We would like to see if they can find it, and compare the data between the two data sets." Tony was good enough at his job, not to discount the map out of hand, just yet.

Captain Kelly looked around the massive light table, and the terrain data on display in various color lights and lines. "Do it." It was a simple statement but Tony did a quick walk over to the communication station, to pass the course change to one of the scouts. Kelly did not care who was sent out to look for that hill top. He just wanted it done, again that was staff work. He started to chew the inside of one cheek then looked over to Dexter. "While we wait to see if they can find this land mark or not. Is there any area that you saw that stood out, or seemed to be the center part of your "Dream"?" Kelly raised one eyebrow as he spoke. He did not know if he wanted to know the answer to this or not. But now it was too late, and he might find out the answer. He remembered a quote his dad had said one day after a very bad day. "If you're scared of the answer, then don't ask the question." He did not understand that quote, until years later. It was on a day that had them in a situation almost this bad, almost that is.

Dexter was looking uncomfortable being in the CIC and looked at the Captain, and then toward the rest of the bridge officers around the table like display. "Sir, every dream that I remembered, always started in a Cove or protected Bay. Here it is on the map, then the dream would work its way out from there." He pointed at the map, so that everyone could see the section he was talking about as he talked. He did not make eye contact with anyone at all in the room. He just point with one finger and talked to the display top in a low voice.

Kelly looked at were Dexter's finger was touching on the paper map. The area he was pointing at on the now unfolded paper, was well south of their current location and had not been mapped yet by the scouts. "What can you remember about the area? Can you give me some more details that are not on the map?" Something was pushing them to this location. Why not try to find out everything we can from this information source, thought Kelly. Kelly's mouth was asking questions but his eyes were locked on the gun turret crewmen to catch any movement.

Dexter stood up straighter, started to rock a little backwards then forwards, and kind of got a glazed look in his brown eyes. "There is a low ridge maybe 600 or 700 feet high running down the coast for a few hundred miles. At a low spot in that ridge, the ocean entered the low lands behind the ridge. The Bay is long, maybe fifteen miles long and five miles wide in one spot. One largish river enters the Bay not far from where the ocean waters crossed the ridge. To the south a smaller river comes from deeper within the landmass, and enters the bay on a flat plain. It has very heavy woods or forest all around the area the whole area of the Bay. It looked to be made up of very old and tall trees with massive green canopy cover all of the ground below. There are huge caves at water level, and below on both sides of the rock ridge that separates the bay from the ocean. The water in the bay is deep all around the bay except around the large river, which has a small and young fertile delta forming. The smaller river's delta only goes out 20 or 30 feet into the Bay's waters, before an underwater cliff makes the water depth go to 150 feet or more to a rock cover sea floor." Dexter was quit for a while, and the glazing went away along with the swaying. "Sir that is all I can remember about the area. Does it help at all?"

Captain Kelly now had Joe behind him listening to what was going on. "Well that was more than I had thought, I would get. It sounded perfect in fact, maybe to perfect," thought Kelly. He was careful not say it aloud, or let it color his face. "Yes Dexter, that is very helpful. Now all we need to do is see if it's there or not." He had to hold up a hand, palm out to stop the other man from interrupting him, so he could continue with his train of thought. "Dexter, I know about your skills. But I will not invest the fuel that the Lucky Find uses, and that we don't know if they will ever be able to replace. We will see what the exploration teams find out, first." Kelly could still see the other man visibly deflate at the lack of belief coming from his Captain.

Kelly let him think about what he had said, before Kelly drop bomb shell on him with a sly smile. "That will give us time to get Rex and his Turbo unpacked, and fly out there for a look around. That is if they find that hill, you drew on your map. If they don't find that hill? Then I won't be able to trust your data. It might still turn out to be there, but we will find it as our scouts cover more area in their search patterns." This was great news for Dexter to hear, and now he looked less like someone had killed his dog. Everyone on the ship, and more than a few other crews knew about Rex Gordon. It was joked that he could be drop off on a glacier, naked and a week later. He would show up at the right port. He would be riding someone else's hover cycle, ready to do it again. If anyone could find the Bay on the map he had drawn in his sleep. It would be Rex, even in Dexter's map was off by even a large amount. He would find it, if it was there at all.

It was only a few minutes later that there was a chance that would prove if Dexter was right, or the dreams were just his mind playing tricks on him while he slept. "Sir, the scout we diverted. Reports that it has found the hill top you asked about. They want to know, if they need to land and check it out more closely or return to their scouting sectors." The voice had come from one of the communication sections fixed station. It was an anonymous voice to Dexter's ears.

Captain Kelly looked around the table and noticed the smiles on all of the face, this was the first bit of good news they have had in days. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves now, people. Contact the scout, I want a range and baring to that hill please. They are cleared to land and get better data, if they fell the need. They are to jump out the second it looks like something has gone south on them. It might be a good idea to remind them, we need information not a fire fight."

The requested information was returned quickly. Joann was the one to return to the large plotting table with the news. "Well Dexter, your map was exactly 250 feet off. That's not bad at all! I had to use a CS map once, that was missing a mile wide river. The whole river was not mark on the blasted thing." Joann was impressed and it showed on her face as well as in her body language. It had an effect on Dexter. His back went straighter and a smile formed on his face, but he did not say anything or even try to talk. Maybe it was because he did not trust his voice around those in power. He felt like a small fish in a very large pond.

"Tony, please go down to the crew area, and go find Rex for me. I want you to tell him and only him, about the mission. Get him on it and if he needs some command leverage, you handle it. Dexter, Joann. I want all of this information put into the on board mapping computers. I don't want it passed to the Lucky Find just yet. But I want to be able to do so quickly when we need to. That is after it has been confirmed, by Rex." With the tasks given out, Kelly went about the rest of his work and his staff went about their jobs. Kelly thought they might be moving with a little more energy in there steps. Than they had when this shift started.

Kelly walked off the bridge and went to his day cabin, he had some private work to handle. He pulled up the latest reports from each of the departments from around both ships. He spent most of his time reviewing the final reports on repairing the battle damage. All of the leaks and damage had finally been repaired. The same was said to be true of the Lucky Find, at least all but the missing prop and shaft. The last bottom hull leak had been track down and patched on that larger vessel. The only things that were still damaged and not fully repaired, where a few secondary support systems that were not that important. That was a lot better than Kelly would have bet on, before the last rounds of battles with the slavers. He was hoping that he would not have to fight off any more in the near future. He knew that he was going to have to do a stand-down day very soon, or crew performance would start to drop. People could only work so long at this level of stress, before accidents happened. He could not afford any preventable accidents right now.

When he went to the last report he was not as happy. He had to read it twice to make sure had taken in most of the data. They were short needed parts to repair the damage to the flying armor. He finished the report and pulled out the push to talk radio. "Joe are you out there?" Kelly waited, but it was only a hand full of seconds before the reply came over the radio in the Captain's hands.

"This is the XO." The tone of the voice let Kelly know that Joe had only heard the ring tone, and did not who the call had come from. After all, it could have been a message from the bridge or one of the Gun Captains. They were the only ones that had the same type of radio.

Kelly thought about pulling his XO's chain for a few seconds, but then shelved the idea as a maybe later item. "Joe, it's Kelly, I was reviewing the issue on parts to repair our flying assets"

"I was wondering when you would get to that report. So what do you want to do about it?" A second voice was starting to talk in the back ground, but was cut off in mid word. The XO must have made a cutting motion, or they noticed he was talking on command radio.

Kelly was about to jump off a cliff, everyone was working under high stress. "Joe I want you to have the boy and girls in the maintenance shop go strip what they need from all of the wrecks we collected. When we have time, I want them all complete taken down. The ones that belong to us have first pick on parts that they recover. We will worry about getting more machine flying when we have time. Any and all other concern can take a back seat."

Joe was very quiet on the other end of the radio. Joe knew that striping Coalition States equipment was a big step, and he was surprised Kelly had jumped that way so quick. The CS would pay well for those wrecked machines, they would not pay a cent of used parts. If the Captain was ordering them stripped now? Which meant for the short term and midterm, they need to stay alive first, then worry about payments later. He knew better than ask his boss to repeat the order. He had been given directions and it was his job to make sure it was done. "Captain, I will order them to cannibalize what parts they need. After we make land fall, and have time. They will part out all the wrecks that can't returned to fighting statues. That will be one way to keep those trouble makers focus, and out of my hair." Joe released the push to talk and went about his orders. It was going to be a juggle to figure out what might be returned to fighting form, or should be rendered into spare parts. "Looks like I will not be able to get a line in the water for a few more hours after all." This was the silent thought of Joe's as he went to the workshops.

Rex was not able to start his scouting mission right away, nor was he expected to by Captain Kelly and his staff. It was just by the time he had his favorite ride unpacked, his tools checked out, and supplies packed it was will after dark. He loved being the first to see something new, and he had moved with a purpose when he had been told about this mission. It had been grading on him that someone else had been given the task to scout twice, before he was allowed to leave the ship. He would have like to start his scouting mission that night, but Captain Kelly pulled out the veto card. Kelly had thought it was not safe, when he had report read to leave. This did allow time for a copy of the "Dream map" to be made, and given to him on the sly. Command wanted it that way, so that no one else would know about it. Younger scouts would have been too keyed up to sleep. Not Rex, he could sleep anywhere and anytime he could. He would say, that he was storing it up, because he would need it later. This trait was one of the ways to tell the veteran soldiers, from the green ones. Green ones could not sleep. The ones that had seen combat could sleep anywhere, all they needed was five minutes of being still. Then they would be snoring like a hound from hell.

Early the next morning after eating a large morning meal, Rex took the hover cycle and launched over the high sided ship. The massively over powered hover jets kept him above the water, as he streaked from ship to the nearest suitable beach. It was a hell of a ride and he was enjoying every second of the flashy departure. He first headed to the nearby beach, as he got closer he had to change course to a smaller sandy beach that was invisible from the ship. After making land fall Rex stopped letting his craft lower to the sand, and shut down the engines. He wanted to check out the local plants before he started the long scouting mission. He only needed to take about half an hour to find the information he needed. Then he turned and jumped back on the hover cycle and reactivated the motor with a flip of switch. He headed south flying at about 100 feet above the ground, soon he was moving at 160 mph between trees and bushes. This was the best speed and altitude for his scouting recording systems, mounted on his cycle to operate without degrading the recorded data. Unlike the other scouts, he was not actively transmitting data back the odd warship anchored outside the cove. He was being a lot stealthier on his task. It was kind of his "thing" to do it this way, dodging the CS military tended to make you that way or you died.

The rest of day was quite on the two human crewed ships, with only the crews bringing animals from the sea to be tested in the lab and cataloged. Some was already being used to stretch the food supplies, but they were going to need more, lots more and soon. Only a few of the smaller fish that were averaging about five pounds in weight were cleared to eat so far. It was hoped that more verities would be cleared soon. By The time the sun sat a little over 200 fish had been caught that day. That might seem like a lot, but that massive catch, could only meet the protein requirements for only 300 people or so. And was only for one day. They were going to have to come up with a different method soon, if they were going to survive much less thrive on this cold planet.


	6. Chapter 6

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Chapter 3 Home Sweet home?**

 **Unknown star system**

 **Off the Coast**

 **Day 6 AT**

Captain Kelly was looking over his notes on his hand held computer. Rex had found the bay and it had been exactly as predicted by Dexter. He also had reports from each of the department heads. Bob had even signed off on all of the reports, and logged his agreement on changing locations as Captain Bob Nicholson, Head Master and Captain of the Lucky Find. He needed to start putting people on the ground quick, or there was going to be a growing list of problems. He had read the preliminary report for the scientist team. It was not going to be easy to explain this next move to everyone. But that was why he was paid the big bucks after all and had the Captain's bars on his hat. He already knew rumors were running full speed on both ships filling a lot of blanks. Maybe he could use that to keep things under control for a while longer and maybe that would cause more problems later.

Kelly was still deep in thought when he was brought out of it by voice giving him an update that he had asked for. "Sir, the Behemoth was brought up, and one of the Maulers came up on the aft crane. We should have the second machine up on the deck in about 20 minutes." Came the strong female voice with the news from Joann's station on the Bridge.

"Good let Bob know, we have his team on board and they are safe. Also please ask him to pass along, that I would like to have a ship wide broadcast for both ships in one hour." He turned to one of the guards that had been stationed on the bridge since the air battle back on Earth. "Please send someone down to the Behemoth. Please asked that the Stapps, and anyone else they might want to come to my briefing room. They can wait till when their machine has been secured to the forward deck, but pass along that I would like to see them." After giving his orders Captain Kelly rose from his chair and walked to the briefing room alone. He could do some electronic paper work that need to be done while he waited for the civilians to make their appearance. They might be on a different planet and might never get back home, but the paper work needed to be done all the same. It was good book-keeping for the future and you never know they might get back to his Earth, in his lifetime.

Captain Kelly had just enough time to finishes reading the first report, when the hatch to his Day Cabin/Meeting Room opened, and three people he had never met before entered the room. They were escorted by one of his crew-members that he did know very well but knew his name. Kelly knew who they were, just not there faces to match the names. Then Kelly noticed his XO behind the group was still half in the ship's corridor. "Please have a seat, Joe can you please come inside, and close the hatch behind you. I think we might want to keep some of his a little more close hold, than other things we have been dealing with today."

Kelly waited as the hatch was sealed and everyone took seats that Kelly had made sure there were enough off in this meeting room. "So I take it I have John and June Stapp, along with Leslie Groves." The couple where holding hands as they entered the room, so that left the short heavy set man to be Mr. Groves. "I read the complete report you sent last night via digital burst over the radio." He waited a heartbeat before he finished his line of thought. He wanted them to know that he had read the whole report and just not the Cliff Notes. "So it's true, that you and your team have not found any insect life on the Main Land or the Island you scouted?"

John Stapp jumped at the chance that he felt was a good opening. "Captain Kelly, it's a lot more important than just not finding any bugs on land. We also have not found any signs of other animals either. No birds, ground animals, grubs, or even any amphibians near salt or fresh water. The only animal life we have found, has been in the water column and tidal zones. That flies in the face of everything we know about and how evaluation works. Because there are air breathing mammals that live there in the water. They should not be there, if they had not been on land for a long enough length of time to develop complex lungs, before returning to the sea. All of the plant life that we have found, relies on self-pollination or the wind to reproduce." John was getting louder and more animated as he talked. "I can see by your face you're not getting it." The 30 something man took a deep breath then went on again, after collecting the words that might help get across the importance of what they had found. "All of our food supplies need bugs of some kind, like bees, to make food. That is why you have robot pollinators for you hydroponics labs. Without those bugs being here? We will only ever be able to grow food, where we have auto pollinators programed to do the work."

He is a bit of an arrogant ass thought Kelly as he listened to the scientist. "Well that will but a cramp in food production, but you forgot something Mr. Stapp. There are two types pollination we do on most ships and only one uses auto pollinators. We can always do a lot of it by hand in green houses, then transplant them into larger fields when they are more little more than sprouts. Also grains like wheat, are a type of grass and only need a wind to blow for them to become a food crop. Besides it doesn't take a lot of training to learn how to pollinate plants hand. I know because, I had to do it before while growing up. On all of the pay charts I have seen and used, it's listed as a low skill job. If we have to, I will make sure that everyone that does not man a weapons mount, learns how to do it by hand. If that is, if we cannot figure out how to reprogram the pollinators on our two ships."

The two Stapps looked at each other, at least June had the dignity to look a little embarrassed at how her husband had been acting. It was her and not her husband that took up the dead air left by Kelly. "We had not thought of that Captain. Were good at finding a central issues, but not so good at having all the answers for a specific area. Looks like we spent too much of our time worrying about the issue, and not enough time looking at workarounds from the different angles. I wanted to say something after the island, but we voted to wait to make sure our facts were right."

Captain Kelly smiled, that must have hurt. "No problem, but next time please let me know when you think you have something. Telling me or my command crew is not like telling a whole town, and we understand how information can change over time. Been there, done that. It could save lives next time. It's something we will have to work together on in the future. Now why don't you all get some hot food and stretch out some? I will be giving a ship wide update in." He looked down to check his great grandfather's wrist watch on his left arm. "In about half an hour. I want everyone to know what is going on, so that way there are fewer surprises in the future. You might not be able to get much rest after I break the news. People are going to want to know "the real story" and be looking at you three to have it."

Captain Kelly stood up, the rest of the room rose as well. When he round the side of his desk the others knew this meeting was over. Kelly walked with the strangers, until he had to break away and head up a set of metal stairs. They would be going straight to an extra cabin and he was going back to his bridge. When he walked onto the brain of the ship he made eye contact with one person, and with a head motion. He directed them over to his location to one side of the metal wall room away from most of the others. "Tony please pass to the Captain of the Lucky Find a copy of all of the updated navigation charts and maps. I need to know when they have them loaded on her systems."

Tony did not jump, but he moved with a quick step to the other side of the room. He picked up an old style hand set and hit two different buttons in quick succession. "Lucky Find plotting, this is Neptune plotting. We have an updated map from our scouts. Are you ready to receive updated digital maps and charts, Over?" Toni stopped talking, and you could tell he was waiting for a replay from the person on the other end of his communications.

A young sounding female voice came back clearly over the speaker mounted to the roof of the Neptune's Revenge's bridge. "Neptune Plotting, we are ready for a wireless data update. Send when ready. Over"

When Tony received the okay, he pushed a few buttons on a nearby computer screen, and the digital file was sent. He waited for the person on the other end, to acknowledge that they had the data. He did not have to wait that long for the female voice to come back over the overhead speaker. "Neptune Plotting are you sure this data is right?" This time the voice did not have the confidence it had conveyed the first time. The tone of confusion in the voice, was very evident to everyone on the warship's bridge.

Tony smiled, she was a sharp mind over there. Dumping Dexter's computerized map to their plotting table must have set off her internal alarm bells. He took just a long second, so that she would not know he was waiting by the device. "We had an updates come in, from a few our scouts during the night." They were trying to protect Dexter as much as they could. It would get out at some point, but the longer it could be close hold. The easier his might be for Dexter, until the other magic uses regained the spell casting ability. It was a hollow lie already on both human crewed ships, but Tony did not know it yet.

Tony had to get off the radio quickly, so he could not spend the time he wanted with the person on the other side of the radio. Maybe after the next stop, and if it worked out as well it seemed like it might. Tony signed off, and then set up for the ship wide broadcast. He gave the Captain a nod to let him know, that he was ready to broadcast to both ships when the Captain was ready.

Captain Kelly took the phone like device, then mentally quickly went over what he needed to say to the people on both ships. He pushed the button, and a sharp buzzing went over the lines, to let the occupants of both ships know that something important was going to be put out. "This is Captain Kelly speaking. I wanted to take this time to bring everyone up to speed on what has been going on, and to cut threw some of the rumors. When we first arrived on this planet, we drop a maker and sensor Buoy as soon as we recovered after surfacing. The Rift has closed behind us, and we do not know when it will reopen. I ordered the scouts sent out as soon as we could. That is when they found the barrier island that we anchored off of. The Lucky Find sent a team of professionals to check out the island, and they reported back to me and Captain Bob Nicholson their findings. It was lacking in almost all of the things we need, so we made our way to this location. Again I sent all of the scouting teams out to see what they could find. What they have found, so far is that the land is devoid of animal life and we can eat most of what the sea has to offer. This will extend out food supplies, but it might get a little tight till we are able to fully inventory our cargo's. We do not want to just pick the first place that we found, and just try to make do. We have a narrow widow to find the best place we can, before we invest our time, sweat, and blood on just a marginal location. So I have had the scouts go further out, and they found an area that we want to check out more closely. The new area is within the 1000 miles range of the radio on the buoy we left at the Rift site. That is for when something happens at the Rift site, we will be able to respond to the event."

Kelly used the word when, not if and he hoped that it was true. "We have a scout on the ground at this promising area now, and it will take about 20 hours to make it there. We also have not picked up any signs of habitation so far. We will be using all of our active system as soon as I am done update you all, but weapon tracking systems will be on standby mode only. I will soon be launching all four of our min-subs, so that they can map the below surface areas as our scouts have mapped the surface world. What I plan to do, is that once we reach the new location I will order more scouts out. If they report no major issues, then we can start landing people who want stretch their legs. We will re-evaluate all of the data, after each of the scouts report in. I only ask that you are patient with me. I want to make sure the place we set up and offload the ships, is the right one with the most advantages I can find. If you have questions please write them down, and drop them in the ships electronic mail box. Someone will get back to you as soon as they can. Thank You." Captain Kelly released the key to close the line. He looked first at the device in his hand, and then at the rest of the Bridge crew. They seemed steady and ready to go, but not scared. This was good, very good. "Joe please launch the min-subs, make sure they know that we will be picking them up around night fall. Helm raise, clean and stow the anchors. It's time to get moving. Please pass along to the Lucky Find that are to head south, when they are able and safe to do so."

It was less than five minutes later that Captain Kelly was updated. "Sir, the Lucky Find reports that she has steam up, and starting to build up speed. They also say that they will see us, when we finally catch up to them." This came singing out from the communication station operator. It had the tone of a good nature jest and lighten the mood nicely.

Captain Kelly smiled, so they want to race. All he had to do now was watch his crew of professionals jump to their jobs, and watch the clock. It would take about an hour to get his ship ready and the subsurface warriors launched. The low speed that the damaged cargo ship could make meant that even with the hour head start. The Neptune and her brood of small underwater craft, would soon be catching up quickly to the larger and slower moving passenger/cargo vessel.

The two ships made their way south, accompanied by the four underwater craft and a set of armed VTOL s flying low overhead. The intakes from all the data gather systems, were being pumped directly into the plotting table. They were making a map and a navigation chart complete with water depth. As well as marking the location of any obstacles within 25 miles of the two surface ships. Everything that was found was plotted, and recorded for any future need. When nightfall came, each of the min-subs contacted the convoy commander and asked to say below to complete the mapping. They were below the depth that sun light could penetrate, so it was no differences to them. That there were only stars were in the sky above the wave tops. Nothing but animal sea life and plants had been found, so far in the deep dark water. It was brought up that the four mini subs could increase their speed to almost double what the Lucky Find could do, and be waiting for the two surface ships in the Bay. Kelly was not sure that this was a good idea. Tired crews can made mistakes, but he knew sometimes you have to do an 18 hour work day and do it to standard. He contacted each of the crews on the submarines and gave them permission not to be picked up. That is "if" the ships commander did not want to shut down operations. If they continued, they were told to be safe, and that he would see them, when he dropped anchor outside of the protected bay that was their destination.

The two ships rigged for no lights. Steamed along all night, and were the only visible sign that humans were on this world. The rails on the side of the ships that was face the land, stayed lined with crew and passengers all night long. The night sky gave them gave them more than enough light for anyone to see. Without the use of any night vision augmentation as the black mass of dark land slipped passed them. When the two ships were almost to the mouth of the bay, many hours later, one of the attack submarines contacted the Neptune's Revenge via low power close ranged radio. All four of small underwater craft, were waiting at the mouth of the bay. They had mapped what they thought was the main channel. They recorded that, as well as the extreme currents locally. That first rushed in and then out of the small mouth of the bay with the changing tides. The submarines would lead the two surface ships to an area, where they could drop anchor. This had been scouted and found clear and acceptable for the job by on one of the SX 30 attack submarines.

Captain Kelly was still up, thanks to the caffeine drinks he had been taking in every 30 minutes. The fore and aft anchors were dropped into the cold dark water of the protected bay with a splash of black water. Now that the ships were stationary, Kelly went to check on the teams that would be doing the scouting, and surveying the local area for the next two days. They would have linking up with Rex, who was already there. They would be scouting for threats, as well as a new home for these lost souls carried by these steel and composite hulls. Rex had been sending updates every six hours on his own. These additional scouts would add a lot more data, with the ability to cover a lot more land in the same amount of time. The scouts were going over the side as soon as they were ready, and given the final check out by a support crewmen. It was a risk to do this at night, but they needed to get this done and the sun would be fully up soon. Kelly assess the risk as minimal and Okayed the mission, the day they had lifted anchors to move here.

When the sun rose in the east, Captain Kelly was scanning the land mass with a set of powerful optics, that were fixed mounted on the bridge wing. One of the first things he notices was that here was not a beach to land his scouts on. Rex had already reported, that there was some type of mango trees were growing out into the water from the dryer shoreline. He was finishing up cutting a path through the trees when the small submarines had arrived. This narrow path was not a must have, but it would make it easier on everybody. Rex would put a light beacon out, so that the scouts could find the easier path to the dry ground, it they wanted it. This path would be a great time saver in the future, so they could get to their main jobs faster. Kelly had to walk threw a Mangrove swamp before, years back. It was not one of his favorite memories of all times. It still made him tired just thinking about it again, even after all of the intervening years.

 **Unknown star system**

 **Safe Port Bay**

 **Day 9 AT**

The sun was rising in what they had stated calling east, it worked for them. Kelly had spent all night reviewing the ground and air scout reports. He was working on a nice high tech computer made by the Triax Company. The powerful computer system came with a unique set of software pre-loaded on it, which was turning out to be very useful now. It was helping plan out the new village, complete with ideas for future growth. "I wished I had not told the rest of the people on the ships, that I would start letting some of them on the shore. If the reports had come back in with negative threats found." Kelly knew without a doubt that his crew would be okay. If he told them that he wanted another few days of scouting, before he authorized the landings to start. He was even pretty sure that the same could be said about the crew from the Lucky Find. But he also knew that the colonist on the Lucky Find would not be so forgiving. That was unless, someone was actively firing at them from the shore with heavy weapons. Then most of colonist might be okay with staying locked on the large, high walled metal ship a little longer. "Too bad that was not in the cards," thought Kelly. "That would give me some extra time, yea that would be just great." Kelly looked down and checked the time. He was almost out of time and he knew it, but he checked anyway. You never knew when miracles might happen and he always had that time checking habit.

"Well best get this over with." He said to himself, then turned around and reentered the bridge from his private office. Kelly walked up to the console he was looking for, and activated it with a few pushes of flush mounted buttons. "To all ships! This is Captain Kelly, the convoy commander. We have had scouts out for the last two days, and they have not reported any major security or safety issues yet. I promised that if the scouts did not run into any problems, that I would allow people to stretch their legs. That is what I am doing now. A schedule well be posted on each ship with a departure time if you, by name. If you miss your time it's too bad, you go back to the bottom of the list again. The scouts have cut an access way, just wide enough for the Sandfish to land and carry you to the dry shore. I want to be open with all of you. Due to the security demanded by GAW, we do not know what we are carrying as cargo at this time. That means that we still do not know what we have to work with, yet. Now before you get concerned where you checked cargo is? It is on the ship you were put on. If it did not fit on the ship you were assigned to, you and the ship's Captain would have been told before we left port. When we have time everything that you have a claim ticket for, you will be given back to you. I hope to have your cargo to you as soon as you're moved onto dry land again. Some things have to be done before that can happen. So the faster we get the required task done. The faster you can be moved out of the ships and on to dry land." He stopped talking, to let that bit of information, sink into the minds of the people who were listening.

Robert took another deep breath and started talking again. "First. We know that there are slavers that hunt for targets on different worlds using Rifts and spaceships. I know that the attacker are like the Naut'Yll, Horune and of course the Splugorth do just that. For those of you who do not know what those races are? Please check with and ask someone from ship's crew, and they will help you out. That means any settlement we build here. It will have to protect us from being sported from above and surface attack, and do both very well. This location in the bay, is perfect to protect us from being spotted by anyone on the open sea. Now the scouts have almost finished detail surveying about eight square miles of area. After they finish, we will need to put a wooden palisade around the whole area that we are going to claim as our new home. This will keep any animals out, which we might have missed so far by our scouts. Now I would have liked to make it more of a modern wall. But we do not have the materials handy or know if we are carry any in of our cargo holds. What we do have, is a small sawmill that we were taking to a new home before this mess happened. After the wall is put up, we will need to build a jetty dock for our ships to tie up along. We will need to unload all of the ships, so that we can find out what resources we have to work with. And we can only do that on land with a pier between the ships and land. It would take forever and someone might die, if we used just the one landing ship to move each of containers on land. That would also mean it will take longer to get you all settled in, with your checked items and cargo. After the dock is complete, we will need to build two large warehouses behind the palisade. After those are complete, we will start working on the housing units for all of our people. If anyone has ideas, please pass them on to command via the electronic post mail. That is a lot of work that needs to be done. If anyone wants to help, and they have their own body armor or EPA. Then please let the ship's purser or division chief know. Your help will be logged into a database. What will the person with the most point's logged helping with the infrastructure get? They will be the first to get a house on dry land. It will not matter if your ship's crew or passenger, on logging those extra points volunteering. Thank you for your time. We are in this together, and we need to use very resource we have. This has to include brain power. We are all we have to count on for the fore see-able future." Kelly reached down, and flipped the switch that closed the line. The back ground buzzing stopped with the closing of the radio line, and all was quiet on the bridge.

Kelly had one more thing to do before he could leave the bridge. "Marko, please contact the Captain of the Find on the Radio. Let Bob know that I will be catching a ride on his landing craft, when it comes over to pick up that sawmill." After the person manning the communications position nodded his head in understanding. Kelly went down to his cabin, so that he could put on his custom painted Old Style Dead Boy armor on. It was tighter fit than he first bought the armor, but he always wore this set of armor every time a battle might come. He had been thinking about picking up one of the New Style suits, but the bone motif was a bit too much for him. Now he was of the opinion that he never would be able to upgrade now.

When Kelly came back onto the top deck, or main deck of his ship. The Sandfish was already along the side of his ship. He watched his deck crew lower the Vibro bladed saw mill, which his crew had found packed down at the very top of Cargo Bay Number 4, into the waiting landing craft below. That was the only cargo bay on his ship, which had materials that Captain Kelly did not know about. Next to go over the side, after the Sawmill, was the 40 foot long Vacuum and Heat Kiln. If anything it was even more bulkier than the saw-mill and swung wildly in the slight breeze. It was also loaded quickly and safely by the well trained crews. Captain Kelly was waiting patiently for the smaller craft to secure the loads for the short trip ashore. When the small ships pilot gave the crane operation a signal. The main ships crane, then began lifting a metal cage. This cage could move over a dozen people to another boat at a time. Without them having to hazard the chain ladder off the side of the slightly moving ship to the more wildly moving landing craft.

The Sandfish normally could carry over 90 tons of cargo, but this trip it was only carry the bulky but light sawmill with attachments and some armored personnel. The portable sawmill was going to be the key to making the infrastructure in anything like a short amount of time. The loading crew knew that this was a very special load, and dropping the load into the very small target on the bobbing landing craft would have been very bad form. The transfer would have only taken ten or fifteen minutes back home, but his was not a developed port or harbor. That would have meant that they had a pier, to put the load on not a wave tossed small landing craft. After the load was tied down on the landing craft a dozen armored clad people form the modified warship were lifted over the side and allowed to board the smaller craft. It took three trips and the last one lift, only had two people in the metal cage. As Kelly exited the cage, he was met by the Captain of the other large ship. It turned out that Bob wanted to take out two birds with this one stone. He held out his hand to the other man, and after a short hand shake. They both walked up to the pilot's position on this little ship that would carry them to shore. That location was reserved normally only for the little craft's pilot, but no one was about to tell them to move along somewhere else. From this location they could see over the flat front bow that was also the exit ramp, when it lowered to the ground.

It was a short trip to the opening cut in the heavy woods from the side of the Revenge. Kelly could see the last tree stump being pulled out of the water soaked ground by two power armor suits. As the landing craft's pilot refined there line up, on the access point. This would make the trip up the sand lane faster and smother on each of the fallowing trip between land and ships. As the pilot drew his craft closer to the sand beach. He slowed even more until the bottom of his craft made a soft swishing sound as it made first contact on the bottom. With a flip of a switch the engine vibration increased, and a set of tracks started to turn, and the craft came slowly out of the water. In a jerk into movement, and it started to crawl up the inclined till it was fully on dry land. A parking and loading area had been marked out in the dirt about 300 yards from the land edge of the mango forest. Once the amphibious craft, was at the desired location. The bow ramp was slowly lowered to the sand and pebble covered ground. While the other passengers were going down the sloped ramp. The two Captains went down a metal ladder that was made into the side of the landing craft. They were on the dry ground, before the last person had exited the ramp.

The two officers walked around the general area, trying to get a feel for the land that was going to be there home for the near future. They made their way back to the unloading area, but stopped when they saw that the site lead, Max Hardberger. The two Captains watched as he was guiding the moving crews, to point out where he wanted the Sawmill in placed. That was when something hit Kelly, and the pair needed to get some work done. The two Captains relaxing site seeing tour was over, but it did allow them a little bit of a diversion.

"Bob how are you doing on fuel, I forgot to ask when we dropped anchor after the run down here. I'm concerned that you will run out. We have been doing a lot of moving and electrical generation to keep everyone healthy. The longer your ships as a belly full of civilians, it's going to lead to even more fuel burning." Kelly was not looking at the other man as he spoke, it was not needed. Besides he was enjoying watching Max work on this project. He was that good with people, and turning rough ideas into real life.

Bob was also looking at the show in front of them. "We are at about half full of bunker oil in total load out. If we cannot keep from make a lot more side trips. It's going to go quick and a lot quicker than you might think. If we're going to staying here for a while. I would like break out my Wood Smoke Condenser and Gasifier system." Bob pointed to a huge, and growing pile of limps on the ground. "If I have a steady supply of that, I can make about 100 gallons of fuel a day. That would cover my ships energy needs, at least while at anchor. I could even add a few extra gallons a day to start refilling my empty tanks. Before you ask, it will take 32,000 gallons of liquid fuel to refill all of my fuel tanks. Oil had a better energy density, but wood alcohol works good also. I will just have to burn more gallons per mile, than I would have to with good old oil based fuels. The down sides is that I will not be able to lift anchor while I have the system in operation."

Kelly smiled, he had seen the equipment Bob was talking about before. He had never used one, but he had a general idea of how they worked. "Let's make sure we talk to Max before we leave. Your Sandfish comes back to the ships empty, most of the time. So why can't they bring out the waste wood to you. That would seem like a good use of fuel and resources."

They were interrupted by some raised voices. When both of the men turned to see what was causing the issue. They saw a well-worn Chipwell Challenger suit bent at an odd angle, and seemed to be frozen in that position. It dropped a log it had been carrying to roll to a stop next to a tall oak like tree. As they were watching the suit's chest open the pilot exit the walking combat machine. The pilot opened an outside mounted panel and removed an E-clip, and replaced with a fresh one form a bag that was attached to the back of the ChipWell built machine. After reattaching the panel, the suit's pilot strapped his machine back around him. It moved the few steps need, and picked up the log of Hard Pine he had dropped when his suite had run out of power. The two men watched this play out and fallowed the machine as it made its way to the Sawmill. There was a growing stack of fell trees, waiting as the Mill was being made operational.

It was taking three people just to set up the Solar Panels, which were needed to recharge the batteries that powered the Mill's system. Kelly had doubts that they would provide that much power here, on this cold and mostly cloudy planet. They had been here over a week, and they had not seen a full day of sun yet. The Solar panels collected and turned visible light, all types of UV and even IR radiation into electricity. Since they could take different forms of "light". They had a higher power output, than devices that could only absorbed one type light, like say visible light. They could be smaller for a given output of the older style of panels. It also helped them to work on cloud, and even rainy days. They just would not work as well.

To one side of the group working on setting up the Solar Panels. The two Captains watched as one of Kelly's crewmen in another set of Old Style Dead Boy armor. Used a long Vibro-knife, to cut the limbs off the 120 to 160 foot tall trees that another team had dropped. That was called bucking a tree. It was so that the cut logs would fit in the 40 foot long vacuum drying kiln, or to feed the saw-mill directly. They watched the last log filled the Kiln to maximum capacity, and the hatch swing shut with a thud. With the cutting part of the Sawmill was still being set up, there was no reason for the easier to put together kiln could not be used now. It would only need a few hours for it to do all the drying and preserving the wood needed for human use. The wood would be pulled out and the kiln reloaded as long as there were bucked logs to go into it. Once the Mill was ready, it could start cutting the dried wood into usable lumber. Off to one side of the drying kiln was Powered Armor person that was pulling the stumps out of the dryish ground. When the three or four meter diameter stumps were out of the ground. They were being moved to the growing pile of scrap wood. This was clearing the ground other uses, later. Plus it make the site look cleaner and neater for some reason.

"Bob how are set for recharging E-clips, and about how many spares clips do you have on your ship?" Kelly knew it was an odd question, and the other Captain might not have the answers he was looking for right off the top of his head. Kelly was working an idea, that this data might be the key to launching it.

The other Captain looked at the man first out of the corner of his eye, then turned, and faced the man more fully. The look on Bob's face made it clear that he had no idea where this line of question was going. There was only one way to find out and Captain Nicholson started to give the out the requested information. "I have a 24 bank re-charging system, which is wired directly into my electrical grid. I also have an emergency Solar E-Clip re charger, but I don't know how well it will work here." He pointed to the cloud cover skies. He pitched his voice a little lower "I also have a used Reactor, but I don't know how much is left in it. I picked it up cheap, it works but I have no idea how long it will charge." He went back to a normal voice, having a small nuclear reactor, was enough to get you shot in most communities back home. The CS would just shoot you and your entire group out of hand, and then take the device. "I have a few hundred E-clips short, standard, and long types in my arms lockers. I also have a dozen canister packs, but they are not charged, when I had them packed down. I could have them charged up, but it would be a few days. That is unless, I fired up one of the main engines. I would have to get with my ships armorer, to get a better break down and numbers of E-Clips. Why?" The tone in Bob's voice conveyed the questions in his mind and on his face.

Kelly smiled a little smile back to the other ship's commander. "I also have a 24 bank recharging system wired into my power grid. They must have had a sale on that type of modification. I have two of the solar stations, and three new nuclear type recharge stations. I also have as an emergency mechanical backup recharging system. I know, we have at least 800 E-clips of all types in my ship's armory. I have a long standing directive. That we will have at least two E-Clips, per person when we leave port. I think we need to get a better idea of what we have on hand. I hope we have more E-clips loaded on board somewhere. You wanted to know why don't you? Well, I was just now thinking about the long term issues. One of them is that we need to start thinking about what kind of government, and economy we want to set up. If we don't get in front of it now, it could get ugly later. I also think we need to start putting some more of the wild life on the table." He made a sweeping motion with this hand. "These guys are going to burn up a lot of protein getting this ready to live on and in. I had my animal team boss, put the one roster in with the hens. We can start growing the number of little ones laying eggs in about six months after they hatch. When we have more elbow room, they think they can set up a small Hatchery in a few weeks. I thinking that fresh eggs are going to be off the menu for a while. We do seem to have lots of fish around these waters to fill the meat needs. What about your animals?"

Bob looked at the man, and remembered the book he had been given by this man. It had an emergency outline for Rifting to a strange world. "Fishing is going to be manpower intensive, till we can get some purpose built boats and nets made. As for the six animals we are carrying? They were loaded pregnant, and each will have twins or triplets in about two months. It things go well, we will go from six to a little over twenty animals. That is going to take some feeding also, and number will get larger if we bread them. I will be breaking into my emergency stores and my hydroponics in a few days to feed the passengers. I have no other choose, but to start eating our seed corn, as they say." The two man walked around the area having a good meeting, which let them cover things that they did not need their staff to know everything about. Or at least know about them just yet. It did mean that a lot of plans or their foundations were made, while the two talked in private.

The two men boarded the landing craft, just as it was getting ready to leave for another run back to both ships. They were having a lot of volunteers to help out, but they could only take so many at a time off the ships to get to the work area. Not all of them really wanted to help in the required hard work. Some wanted just to get off the ship for a little while, and see what the new land looked like first hand. Some even tried to claim certain bits of land instead of working. They had no idea that the command group was not going to allow that to happen. The two Captains would spent most of the next few days comparing notes and trying to plan out what their next major move might be.

It took only three days to cut all the trees and removing all the stumps, that had been marked to thin out the overhead cover in the eight mile area. This had to be done to make room for the constructions, which would be taking place under their obscuring limbs of the huge trees. This thinning out did not provide enough wood to support what was needed, but it was a good start. The first trees to be cut were the ones inside the almost eight square mile area that would be the new town. The local wood, when it was dried in the kiln was ten times stronger than any tree that had grown native on far away Earth. That did not mean much, to the Mill that was cutting the logs into usable products. It could have cut the strongest high tech metal or stone, just as easily as it cut the hardest wood found on this planet. The only thing slowing it down, was the lack of power to run the spinning blades for more than six hours before the batteries ran out of power.

While the marked trees were cut down and possessed at the Sawmill site. A trench five feet deep had been dug into the rich black dirt. It would hold the bottoms of the now cut 15 foot tall an inch square logs. This trench was constructed around the whole outside surveyed eight mile area that would be the human town. They did not have enough marked trees to make even a quarter of the distance around the build site, by thinning out the area of the soon to be town. This had been planned for and beyond the completed Palisade, would be an open kill ground. In the open area they planted local grass after the trees and stumps had been clear cut. The first trees and stumps to be removed were the ones within ten feet of the new and growing wooden walls. Anything that could not be used to build, was cut into smaller bits to be taken to the Lucky Find. From there it would be turned in to wood gas, or be burned as the fuel to make the gas. It was also used to fire grill the local fish that replaced the canned or preserved meat in all of their meals.

By the end of the first week after they had dropped anchor in Safe Harbor Bay, the wooded wall surrounding the soon to be town was completed. The wooden wall would not stop most Rifts weapons, but it would take a lot of damage before failing. Even weapons fire from crew served weapons from the early 21st century would take some time to make even dent in it. Much less breach the wall in any one location. They had their first major storm during that time. Besides having a hard rain, the ships were barley affected. That was thanks to the protected bay that they had claimed as their new, if hoped for temporary home. A second cut through the pseudo mangrove forest/swamp was also made. This would be the land end of the planned for jetty/dock. They could not afford to block the one already made by construction. When the wall was complete, Captain Kelly was able to announce that since so many people had helped out, that if it stayed that way. Then they could work on two projects at once. Max had noted during a briefing that he had almost twenty five present of his people not working at any one time.

They would start working on the large storage warehouses, and the jetty/dock at the same time. Captain Kelly had also put out to everyone on the two ships, that they were going to set up a Triumvirate government. Two of the seats would go to ships Captains, the last seat would be filled by a majority vote of all the people 18 years or older. This election would take place exactly 60 days from the day they were drop into this new world. It was hoped that giving everyone a vote in the say of the government. That it would keep a lid on any descent from the colonial/passengers on the Lucky Find. Kelly hoped that having a third person would even out the work load of the other two leaders had been drowning under. It was hard enough being a ship's Captain without all the other stuff, like governing being add on to their overworked shoulders.

By the end of the third week on this planet, a 100 foot long inverted F shaped jetty and dock was completed and ready to use. It was amazing how fast a power armor fist could pond the long strong logs deep into the subsurface mud and rock. Moving the rock needed to fill the space between the twin walls of the jetty, was just the matter of finding the rock. Then having someone carry it to the right spot, and drop it into the water. The wood crossed layered decking was wide enough, so that the widest load or heaviest loads could be driven or towed down it without damaging the jetty. To keep dock and jetty from being seen from above. The soft wooded pseudo mangrove where transplanted along both sides of the deck. This was so that their thick branch bell would cover the work going on below. The end of the F was in the deepest water but not over the underwater cliff that marked deep water. The Lucky Find needed at least 35 feet of water to float freely. This location gave it a steady 40 foot of water, no matter how low the tides went. On the land side of the 600 foot long dock, held the Neptune's Revenge and the two XS-30's attack submarines. Closest to the shore and in the shallowest water were a NG-SU7 Crayfish that had been found buried in one of the cargo holds of the Lucky Find. Beside it was the NG-S1 Sandfish cargo landing craft. These two vessels where tied to the shorter dock off the F shaped construction. The water here would sometime complete leave those small craft resting lightly on the mud of the bay floor, but only on the lowest of tides this planet had to offer. Soon those two small water craft would be joined by the two smaller submarine carried by the Neptune's Revenge. Launching them from the jetty/dock was both quicker and easier, than launching them from the cradles on the Revenge. The idea was that if they were going to need them, they would need to get them into action very quickly.

It was quickly decided that they would need three warehouses instead of the planned two, but with the number of hands it did not slow them down. A common home design in an electronic book was selected, that would have five rooms with a greenhouse along the south side. This could provide each of the new owners some food that they could grow themselves, and not have to buy on the open market. A stone fire place was on the shared wall with the green house. This was so that it could provide heat to the home, and into the green house to help plants grow on this cold planet. They had already finished five homes and the lucky or hard working families had only moved in a few days after the dock was complete. Each home would only have two solar panels, right now. That was because they just had not found enough yet. Plus so many were needed to power the Mill and other elements that a settlement as a whole needed. It did not leave many to be spread out among the family homes being built. The homes were however wired up, so that one long E-clip could power everything for a few days to a week. That is if they were careful with the power usage. It was hoped that the pace would pick up on building more homes. Now that the dock was complete, and the man power could be shifted to other areas that could use extra hands.

They had been very lucky that a whole shipping container of Vibro-weapons had been found while the last major bit of the dock and jetty had not been completed. When the landing craft had not been ferrying people back and forth to the construction site. It had been loaded with cargo containers from the cargo ship. Each container had to be cut open and inventoried; GWS had said that each container had an inventory list mounted on the inside. It did not take long find out that about half of the time, the inventories did not match with what had been packed inside. Some items were helpful but other times it was not so helpful for right now, but maybe in a few years they would might be useful. They did find items, which as they say would "make life worth living". These luxuries would be given out as rewards to the individuals in a very sparing manner. It was not like the owners would miss them, and it they did ever return home. What lawyer would take the case to get compensation? Cargo containers that were going into the Warehouses were the ones with useful items. The items could be signed out to those that needed the tools. They had to be returned at the end of shift, but it add more hardware to help build up the local area. More tools to better support these cast always was a very good idea.

A big ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of the three major projects. Even though it was cold, and this area seemed to be getting deeper into winter. More than a few of the new colonist were setting up tents to live it till they were awarded more solid home. This added a requirement to have someone the two Captains trusted to guard the warehouses, to stop someone getting sticky fingers in the night. The warehouses were filling up with the cargo containers that were coming off the ship, and soon they could get deep into the cargo holds. While the party was going on the two ships Captains worked out how to make the next move. Since the cargo hold on the Neptune was almost empty, they decided to focus on finishing emptying that last hold on her. Then any weapons or ammunition would be shifted back to that ship for long term storage and protection. The Neptune had better security and a built in dedicated security system that was good enough to stop even the pros from taking her cargo's. There should not be that many issues on that scale on this planet, or so it was hopped.

The passengers had an early roll call vote, and elected Max Hardberger as their leader that night of the dedication ceremony for the new village. When the two Captains came back to the party later that night. They publicly accepted the vote of the civilian and ship's personnel. But they would wait to see if they thought that the civilians might want to change their minds. This election had been the first time that most of them had been allowed to vote for their leadership in any shape or form since birth. This was a tough decision since both men liked Max. They were worried that the passengers had jump the gun by electing him early. Early on the first full day that the large ships were tied to the dock, and most people still recovering from the party the night before. Max asked for a meeting at the noon day meal with both of the Captains and now co-leaders. It was short notice, but both men agreed and the meeting was set to be held in the Captain's Mess aboard the Lucky Find. The captains left the party comparably early, letting the passenger and off duty crews blow off some steam.

Just before the appointed hour, Max knocked on the metal door to the dining room/ meeting room. Both Captains looked at each other and agreed without saying a word that this was a good sign. This was Bob's ship, so it was his responsibility to accept the knock. "Come on in Max." They did not know if it was Max or not, but it was a safe bet that it was him. They had been notified when the newest member of the leadership, had made his way up the gang way to the large cargo ship from the newly finished wooden topped dock.

Tall, slender, and long but styled brown headed Max entered the room. Right off the bat, the other more experienced men could tell that he was uncomfortable. If they were on one of the construction sites. He would have been more in his element and comfortable, but not in this metal box. Kelly took pity on the other man. "Max why don't you take a seat, and have a bit of lunch." He pointed to a covered dish in front of the only other seat at the table, and the only one that did not have a butt sitting in it already.

Technicality Kelly should not have offered the seat, but this was going to be one of the leaders of this little outpost. The three of them should be, or fell like equals in private and in public. As the third man took a seat, and uncovered the plate of fried fish. Kelly went ahead with some ice breakers he had gone over late last night. "So Max you're our third. It feels a little weird doesn't it? I should say that it gets better over time, but as far as I know it doesn't."

The other man just looked down at the table, but he had not touched his food. "Yea about that. I never put my name in for the job. I had no idea that I was even on the ballet, till the day we all voted. I almost did not even go cast my vote, because of work. I don't know the first thing about being in the government, much less being part of the top tier. I don't know if I'm the right person for the job. I just want to build things and improve our situation."

Both Captains looked at each other and then quickly back at the other man at the table. They could not hold it down anymore. Each gave a great belly laughs, and kept going till they were almost in tears. Kelly was able to talk between gulps of air. "Max welcome to the club! It's not like we have a book or some class we went to, when we took command of our ships or something. We are just making it up as we go along! I don't know about Bob here, but I'm been scared someone was going to call me on the carpet about some screw up I did or ordered done."

Max was a smart man, but he was looking back and forth between to two men trying to see if they were playing some kind of game or trick on him. He did not like people who tried to make a fool out of him, not in public and not in private. He had been known to punch people out who had tired before, but he trusted both of these men at the table. While they kept laughing, he could not believe what he had heard so he asked them point blank. "You're kidding me right. You're both Captains! You have to have some idea what to do."

Bob was the first to respond to this, because now Kelly was having trouble breathing and talking at the same time. "Max what do you think? They give us a magic wand or something to give us, Captains the right answers when we got our ships blessed upon us? We just work hard, and try to do the right thing to protect our crews and passengers. That is all we can do, and try to keep ourselves educated on what is going around us."

Now Max was stunned and he did not know what to do. He was wishing, that he had tools in his hands so that he could make something. That was something he understood how to do, not this. He picked up the only tools on the table, and took a few bites of the fish before it got any colder. While he was eating, it allowed him to take in what they had been saying. All they wanted to do, was the right thing and protect the people. All of the people not just their crews. He thought he could do that. He swallowed the bit of white fish meat, before talking to the now quiet men across from him. "Okay well what do we do next?"

Kelly looked at Bob and then back to Max before saying anything. "If we want to be seen, as a legitimate governing body. We need to post all of our rules, decisions, and future plans with all three of our names on it. We will need to post them, so that anyone can see and read them for themselves. That will enforce that we." He pointed around the four sided table. "Are working together". Now as for the future, Max you're a civil engineer and city planner. So you will have a big impact on the future of our little settlement. For the simple reason, you know more than we do on that subject, well besides how to set up and run a sea port or harbor. I think Bob and I, have you in knowledge on that part of city planning."

Max was looking around the table and at the other two men were looking at him. They were waiting to see if he had any input on a subject. "'I've read the rules that Captain Kelly gave out the first day. I agree with them, why don't we have a letter written up, that we all sign saying that fact. We can post them on the main door of Warehouse 1. Most people already gather there, or stop by it as a king of unofficial meeting place. We could just put up some kind of board. It would be dedicated to posting meeting notes, and any other information coming out of our meetings. It would give everyone, a single place to look for that type of information. Without needing to come all the way back to the ships, and start asking twenty questions to someone on duty."

Bob's head rocked back a little and he raised an eyebrow, he was thinking hard about what Max had said. "Warehouse 1 hmmmm? I have not thought about posting it there. I was thinking, maybe at the end of the dock or on the sided of one of the ships. I did not get around the thinking about the time later when most, if not all of people are living on the land and not on the ships. Posting it on the side of one of the Warehouses makes more, a lot more since. Both in the long term and short term realms. I like it. What do you think Kelly?" Bob now looked towards the other Captain, so see what might be on displayed on his face.

Kelly looked left then forward again, and gave a half smile aimed at Max. "That's why there are three of us, so that we can have new ideas and not yes men. Looks like this well be a working meeting after all. Max, I think you're going to end up working more than your lofty pay will compensate for." He leaned forward across the table, and stuck out his hand and had a very friendly smile. "I think we will make a great team Max."

Bob activated a console mounted on the arm of the chair he was sitting in. In front of each of the three men, a keyboard and screen activated. They worked all the way till the sun went down on this cold planet. Only leaving the table to answer the call of nature before returning to the grind. They even forgot to eat their evening meals. It did not take long after they sent a runner to post first notices on the warehouse. That word got around that they were already working together. One of the first things that was decided. Was that anyone working to support a missions for the good of the settlement, would be paid with charging credits for E-clips. Missions like gather firewood and fuel for the wood gas device, scouting, guard duty or what the Triumvirate voted on to be a support mission qualified for this payments. Those all would be given a set number of recharges credit for the E-clips. They was also signed off on, that whatever someone had checked or shipped. It would be returned to them no matter what it was. It did not matter if it was a giant robot or a cache of ammunition. But any replacement of expended ammunition, would take a unanimous vote of the Triumvirate to reimburse the shooter. The contents of the magazines of the two ships belonged to those Captains to use. And use only as they see fit, and would not be reviewed by the elected government. Just like if someone packed down a Titan fighting robot, they could use it as they please. Several other bits of work were done that day, and it also cemented a working relationship between the three men.

Over the next few months over 2000 homes and grow houses, were built in the eight square mile marked off and protected area. They also had strung all of the camouflage netting that they had been found in the cargo holds. This would protect all of the ships from being seen by Radar, and a number of other reconnaissance systems. They had issues, but they had the quiet time they needed. The only issues they could not overcome, were the cold and the occasional storm that would blow through the area. What cause the most shocking physiological issues, were the two dozen people who ended their lives by their own hands in those opening months. After an investigation, it was found out that all of them had been powerful magic users back on Earth. More than one had voiced issues about not being able to live the rest of their lives out, just as a mundane. A mundane was slang term for someone who was deaf to magic, and looked down upon by other magic users. It would seem that they had relied so much on their magic skills. That they had few other skills, which they could fall back on to base any kind of life off of. A support group was set up and held meetings on the Neptune, for anyone who also might have felt that way. It was rarely a small meeting, but they tried to work threw it as a community. Training and classes were set up to teach new skills to the ex-magic uses and anyone else who would like to learn them. Those skill were the ones that now proved to be lacking in the small pool of people. It gave them some purpose, to their shattered lives.

When they had been on this new planet for six months by the old calendar. The Neptune untied from the wooded and tree covered dock. It made its way back to the buoy, it had left in the sea on the first day on this planet. It would only transmit at full power if it found something. This was a power saving protocol that was starting to cause an issue. A growing rumor had been going around in the growing town, that said it was not working at all. After massive fight had broken out in Warehouse One, the issues was brought to the Triumvirate for a decision. Captain Kelly volunteered his ship, right off the bat to address the rumor. It was the only ship that was the right size, range, and without a fuel supply issue. He took 30 additional passengers with him, so that it could be "proved" that there was a still a buoy in paced and that it was still working. When they returned with the information, that it was working and within one mile of what they had been told of before. Kelly and group found that it had settled the nerves for most people under their charge, at least for a little while.

It was some time after this event that one of the Lords of Kobol returned to this cold planet hidden in a nebula. It wanted to check on the charges, and see how they were doing. It needed to know if his larger plan would work. It saw a thriving settlement, which was growing and anything but defenseless. They even had new born babies being looked after, and happily pennant woman making lives for themselves on what seem like a safe place to raise a family. It was happy, this would help its other projects. It would answers the desperate prayers coming from a lost group of beings running for their lives. "Now how to get those lost souls to this part of space," it thought? It was not as easy as one would think for a god. It had to do so, without it having to move all of those fragile space ships. It need to be done without breaking them or the crews inside the metal hulls. It smiled when it saw a swarm of smaller scout crafts, leave the warships protecting the defenseless civilian ship. It reached a finger, which was just a little out of phase with this plain of reality. It just lightly touched the engine in the little craft at a certain point. It did notice that his craft was piloted by a being that used the name Racetrack by friends and commander alike. She would not be completing the mission she had planned on. There was a more important mission, that needed to be done, and she had been unknowingly drafted to do it. The hunt for the Arrow of Apollo would have to be one Raptor and crew short.


	7. Chapter 7 Visitors

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Chapter 4 Visitors**

 **270 Days after the Hall of the Colonies**

 **2 years 1 month 6 days AT**

There was flash and a bit of blurred motion and an eye blink later, a battered looking Colonial Raptor popped back into to real space. This bit of space was not where the Raptor had planned to have arrived at. It was so different, that it did not take but a few seconds for both the Pilot and the EO to realize something was very wrong. The pilot was worried what the Admiral would say to them, when they returned to their battered but still moving home. The orders were that if you had a miss jump, or were otherwise separated from the group. You were to return to the Battlestar and the rest of the fleet as fast as possible. A close second on the list of trouble the pair thought they were in was how much Frak they would catch from Starbuck. For getting lost on her mission to retrieve the Arrow of Apollo on the very first Fraking jump. While the two were thinking about that, their electronic system stabilized after the jump and went to work. It should have been easy to pick up the life barring planet below the Colonial made craft, normally. This was not was not anything like a normal location. It was hard to detect the planet even this close, because of the nebula they had unknowingly jumped into. When the data finally started to firm up and was displayed on the pair's screens. The two Colonial's realized what they had found and it was very special. They became very excited, as more and more data was pumped into the different screens mounted on the scout craft.

It was too bad that it was not there mission to scout new planets, today. On the other hand. This was just too good, not to make sure the information did get back to the fleet as fast as they could. Racetrack and Skulls did a quick second scan of the planet. They were able to pick up an amazing amount of data, in a very short amount of time. This was all done, while there jump system on the little craft was recharging for another interstellar move. When the engine was ready? Then the Raptor was gone again in a brief flash light and some leaked energy. They did not pick up the growing human settlement on the coast of the main continent. It had been on the other side of planet when Racetrack arrived, so it would not have matter that habitation had been planned and built not to have be seen from above. The humans on the surface also did not pick up the small ship in space, before it disappeared again out of the solar system and out of the nebula. The detection systems that the humans had on the planet, were never design to scan that high or deep into space. To Captain Kelly and ship's crews, it was like nothing strange had happened at all, yet. Back on Rifts Earth, space was closed to them. And after over 300 years, very few people thought about what was happening above the planet's surface any more. It had been almost bread out of the people from that battle torn world by this point in time to wonder about the stars.

The god had fallowed the Raptor on is miss-jump to this system, and watched until the little Colonial craft had left again. The old lord of Kobol made a mental note to check on this place again, in the near future. The next danger point, was sometime down the road for these souls. As long as those intense heart-felt prayers kept coming from them. He would grow in power, every day one of them offered a prayer to him. He would like this to continue, if it could. He would protect this recharging point as best he could. As long as it was giving him something in return. He was tapping his trident in his off hand, as it changed plains of reality again. It was never seen by the human eyes and sensors, which lived in this specially designed hidden system.

A few days later all around the little cold planet hidden in the nebula, flashes of ships coming out of jump space and appeared one after the other in rapid secession. They had just had a shocking change of civilian leadership of what remained of the Colonies of Kobal. The newly elected president wanted everyone on the surface of this planet, and for the running from the cylons to finally stop once and for all time. They did an extremely quick scan of the planet's surface, but their systems missed the emissions from the other humans on the land below them. The new civilian leadership was more concerned about it being quick and less concerned about effective. Baltar was not worried so much, that DRADIS sweeps might not be complete. The Colonials designers and operators never had seen anything like the systems the Earthers used. Even if the Colonial military did notice Captain Kelly and his people, the Colonials would not have known what they were. The Rift Earthers also were being cloaked by the back ground interference from the surrounding nebula. The area that the Rift Earth settlement built in was nice, but it was not what this Rag Tag fleet was looking for as there landing site. To make the first land fall since the cylons attacked, the humans wanted or needed it to fit certain requirements. They wanted a large but cleared flat area. That the surface ground would also need to take the weight of the landing capable space ships. Baltar wanted everyone together, and it was he who picked the cold, wet, and muddy plain. That would be the landing site, and new home for what remained of the 12 Colonies of Kobal.

 **New Caprica**

 **284 Days after the Hall of the Colonies**

 **2 years 1 month 20 days AT**

Captain Kelly's head came up like a shot from a rail gun. As an air horn and sirens on both ships went off in an ear splitting howl, which hurt your ears and made headaches like a very bad hangover. Even at a distance of almost a mile away from where the two ships were tied up at it was loud. Kelly grabbed Max, who was with him at Warehouse 1. The pair had been talking to people around the large building that had become the center of the small, but still growing little village. He pushed the other man into one of the Road Kings SUV's that had been once cargo, on one of the ships. Now it was acting as their transport around the local area. It was in bad form to run like that in front of the civilians and crews, but this was not a time to be sedate or dignified. Kelly punched the accelerator, and the big machine started to race towards the dock. They were leaving the wide eyed civilians behind in a cloud of dust and flying light debris. The ships crews were only a little slower than their Captain in reacting to the noise. Before making a fast break to their homes around the enclosed village. Max gave a bewildered look to the other man, who was behind the wheel of the speeding and bouncing SUV. After working with Max for almost two years now, Kelly know that he was concerned. Before he could say anything Bob's voice came over the four wheeled drive vehicles built in radio. He was saying that he was on his way from the Mill, and heading towards the ships. He had been checking on how the newly started rock cutting was going, now that they did not need so much possessed wood on a weekly bases. They were working on a number of different ways to use the local stone as a road building material. Now Bob was driving as fast as he could down one of the other dirt roads in the settlement, towards the dock ships.

Kelly went over a set of exposed roots from a massive cover providing tree, which almost loosened the pairs back teeth in Max's head. Kelly let his right foot get a little lighter on the accelerators. As they slowed down on the bouncing, Kelly found the breath to talk. "Max that alarm, is the auto nuclear detection alarm. And it's going off to wake the dead." When the other man did not seem to get what Kelly was trying to tell him. Kelly added some more information, between hard hit bumps. "Max someone just set off a nuclear bomb close enough for us to pick up the EMP from the blast, and it was not us. We are not alone on this planet anymore. And they might be pissed at someone, or something, or us enough to detonate a nuclear warhead."

Max's face turned an odd shade of green, and then went very gray as the information worked its way through his brain. He nodded at the mad man driving the high ground clearance vehicle. Then he just said one word, after hitting another set of exposed roots. "Faster." Kelly obliged him, and tried to put his foot threw the metal floorboards of the SUV.

Max and Kelly's Road King slid to a stop, and both men ran up the gang plank to the high sided ship as fast as their old legs could carry them. They had almost reached the main deck of the ship, when an Ermine scout vehicle slid to a stop by their still cooling and slightly rocking vehicle. Bob jumped out of his still rocking scout car, and was moving at the run in less than four steps. He was right behind them, as Kelly and Max entered the bridge area on the Neptune's Revenge. Joe turned to look towards them as the hatch crashed open, and slammed against the metal inner wall of the ship. As the three out of breath men fully entered the dark room. They had to stop moving so as not to run one of the staff members over. The sound outside started to wind down, and get less ear splitting, to only about make your ears bleed a little bit level.

It took only a second for Joe to decide how to address the group entering the Bridge. His training told him to just address this to his Captain, but with the whole leadership of the village on the bridge. Now here this was a little different, and his mind quickly worked out how to get around this slight change. He just pitches his voice to carry to all three of the men, and started talking. "Our nuclear alert detected one device detonation four and half minutes ago. We are still trying to refine the details. But none of the scouts, and lookouts have seen a cloud or have heard a blast of any kind. It might be a false alarm, but we are still not going to come off our alert statues. Until we know it was a system issue or some of other none warhead detonation event."

Kelly turned to Max, who was off to his right side, and still breathing threw his open mouth. He knew Max was out of his knowledge depth. Kelly wanted to explain in a little more detail while he had the free time. "The EMP detector only works, when it has a line of sight with the nuclear blast. It does not make since, not to have eyes or ears on the blast, which set off our detectors. It would have to be close to us for the blasted sensor to pick it up the EMP."

As the XO and Captain was finishing his all too short update, and explanation on ship's systems. A voice came from the back of the bridge, which drowned out most of the others in the room by sheer volume. "THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT!" The four men turn to see who had sounded off so loudly, in such a small metal room. They saw a young man named Tim scratching his head, with his head hung over a console. Tim was so into his system read outs that he had not realized, he had yelled his frustration loud enough to be heard below decks from his seat.

Kelly was the first to start moving towards that location. The other three men fallowed him almost as one animal, and not four different people. When Captain Kelly was close enough the station, he could see the computer screen was running a systems diagnostic check. What he could not see, was what had caused the operator such distress to shout out and then run a systems check? "So what have you got Tim?" Kelly used his softer, so not to shake anyone else up more. Than they already were with the nuclear attack warring device.

The operator was so focused on his system that he had not heard the group stocking up on him, like a pack of lions going after a gazelle. So he almost jumped out of his seat, when the voice sounded softly beside his left ear. "Ahhhh Sir, I'm running a full systems check and test. There has to be something wrong with the damn thing. It might need to be sent down to the electronics shop, for them to look at the insides of the beast. I have no idea when it will be back in proper operation."

Kelly smiled a tooth hidden smile, at Tim. He was trying not to make Tim, more nervous than he already was. He also was trying not to lose his temper at him, either. "Well what did it say before you ran the self-test?" You did not take down a system like this one during and alert. Unless it was battle damaged and risking the rest of the ship with it begin nonoperational. The operator knew and had been well trained. On when and when not to take their systems off line, without high command Okaying the event before they moved a finger.

The operator picked up a hard copy print out form the side of the machine in a low profile hopper, and handed it off to his commander. That was good thought Kelly, as he was looking down reading the print out. This was so that he did not miss anything, as the EMP operator at this station started talking. "The system said the alert was about an enhanced radiation burst from a 55kton device in air-burst mod. With a blast at an altitude of between 312 miles to 422 miles on a heading of 67 degrees off of magnetic north. I checked the plotting table, and that would be just coming up on our visible horizon. If it was true, so I ran down the trouble shooting list for my station. It said to run a self-test, to make sure the system was not developing a fault deep in its software or firmware." He took a breath and was waiting to be chewed out. It did not come and the longer it took to come, the more Tim was going to sweat in his uniform top.

Captain Kelly looked at Joe and Max, both men were white faced. Kelly was able to keep his voice flat and even, when he spoke to both Tim and his XO. "Re-run all of the data, bring up the main Air Search Radar. I want you to run a quick full power search in active mode. Then power her back down to standby mode. Let's see if it can pick anything up that high. I don't know if it can reach that high, or even if it would know what it was seeing with the current software build. If it can get a return form that altitude."

Joe turned and pointed to another stations and nodded. Everyone had been watching them, so only a few more words were needed and they went to the task with speed and skill. The bridge filled with the sounds of high speed gears turning coming through the metal hull. The radar scattering camouflage netting was rolled up, to clear the ship mounted system. Now they would have a clear shot with beams of Radar energy in the X band range. It would take a few minutes to warm up the massive radar system for operation. The Air search radar had not been used, other than for a short test every few months. That were just to make sure it still worked, or fix items that might have broken over time. Salt and sea air were not friends to electronics devices, even in the age that this group of humans has come from. Items would just stop working, if they were not warmed up and tested every so often.

"Sir the camouflage netting is clear!" came from another station half way across the metal room that was both the bridge and CIC of the warship. This update was not for the ships officers, but so that others could do their jobs. "Air search come on NOW!" in 45 seconds the voice bellowed into the cold air "Search complete!" This was followed by the same sound of gears turning and straining as they did their jobs of recovering the flat radar panels. "Sir, Netting is redeploying. We will be back under cover in 60 seconds!" This was not a new skill set for this well trained crew. Kelly and Joe both had inside smiles on. Knowing that all of those "Drills" had just paid off big time and the crews knew it also.

It was only three of four steps to the main screen, which would display the returns form the radar. Captain Kelly was not surprised, when the display only showed the ridge across the bay from them. From what he remembered of the specs on the upgraded radar, it only had an altitude range of about 100 miles or so. He considered it was worth the risk to see if anyone was coming for them, besides the published specs could have been wrong. The crew and Joe did not need to tell the Captain or the visitors that the screen was clear of any threats, at least for now. That was when that same voice behind them saved anyone from saying something dumb that they might have lived to regret. "Sir, the nuclear detection system reran the data, and it's coming up the same as before. It did happen according to EMP detection device." Tim was fighting to keep the bewilderment out of his voice. He failed miserably.

Max had been quite since he had entered the ship's bridge, but now he broke his silence. "We need to advice everyone to be on alert. I think everyone should be in body armor at all times, and have at least side arms with them at all times." He stopped talking and made an odd face, like he had bit into a very strong lemon or something equally as bad. "Do we need to sound the pirate alarm?"

Bob looked at the other two men. "Kelly I agree with Max, lets sound the alarm." He made a face that was a close match to Max's look. "The only ones I know of, that have any idea about things in the exo-atmosphere area, are the Stapps. We should ask them to return to town and tell them why." The Stapps were independent contractors, which had proven extremely useful to this ship wrecked community. They had paid for their own tickets back on Rift's Earth, so that they could go to the old east coast to explore. Just because they wanted to and not under anyone else's orders, for once. They were very helpful and smart, but they did only the things that they wanted to. If they were not interested in doing something? They would not help out, no matter what the offer of compensation might have been. One of the ways to get them to help, was come up with something that interested them and ride for as long as you could by adding as many riders to it as you could get away with. .

Captain Kelly had ideas to. "Joe please post the pirates alert, and what Max suggested about our people needing to be ready for an attack. I think I will also order my weapons crews, to do weapons checks and re-load all of the ship's mounted weapons.' Kelly looked at Joe who only nodded at his orders, before he turned and started issuing orders. Kelly was not done yet. "I think we need to post a notice on what we know about this alarm, and that we are just being careful. I think we need to pitch it as a just in case, it might be slavers. I also think we need to get back on shore, so that we do not have too much of a panic and someone gets shot by mistake." Each of other two men, shook their heads in a silent agreement before truing towards the access hatch they had entered.

When the three men walked back up the wooden dock/jetty at a measured, if not leisurely pace. They left their transports on the dock beside their ships for future need. They were bombarded with the same question. "What happened?" from about a dozen people that they passed. They told them all they knew, but that only caused more questions to fallow. Finally Kelly just told everyone, that all they knew would be posted on the screen mounted on the side of Warehouse 1. Kelly was thankful again of finding that 90 inch UHD 3D computer display, they had found in one of the cargo boxes aboard the Find. After another late comer had come and asked what had happened. Bob just told everyone to fallow them, and the trio would go over it all again. It was funny by the time that they were almost to the area, every time someone new showed up and asked what was going on. The crowed would tell them very vocally, that they were going to get told once they got to the warehouse.

When they got to the massive building that was a lot more than just a warehouse now. The three leaders did a quick little huddle amongst themselves, before they started the massive meeting. Max had notice that on the massive screen, was a request for one of leaders to contact the Neptune's bridge as soon as they entered the building. Bob was voted to go into the warehouse/meeting place, and use one of the land lines to contact the converted warship to see what was going on. It turned out that the Stapps had picked up the nuclear detonation on their own equipment. They were on their way back to the Settlement. At the fastest rate their machine could go through the heavy woods and not kill themselves. They should make it to the nearest dirt path that the Rhino bulldozer had made soon, but they were still over 80 miles from the settlement when they radioed in. Bob did some quick math in his head, after he had been given the numbers. It they made their best speed, they still would not make it back to Safe Port Bay until just before the sun had set.

Bob called one of the older kids over when he was done on the land line. He sent him on a mission to let all of the four land access gates know that the Stapps were due in soon. These were the only access points to the outside world. Now would know that the scouts would be coming in fast and hard. The kids love these little errands, that was because that meant they would get a chit for a recharging an E-Clip that they could spend. They also would be able to use one of the few mountain bicycle, which made it to this new planet in the cargo holds of the Lucky Find. Bob hoped that they would make some of their own man-powered transportation in a cottage industry like set up. The problem turned out to be. How do you make rubber tires without rubber? So bicycle production was at a standstill for now, but some things looked like they might work out in the near future.

It had been a few months ago, that someone had found out something while doing some kitchen experiments. It turned out that all of the waste from making the wood gas, could have been used as a type of feed stock. This was the first step to make plastic and a type of very low grade rubber. They were still working on the rubber, but the plastic problem had been fixed already. What they were making now. Was being used as weather proof insulation and outer covering for the still growing number of green houses. They were already self-sufficient in growing fresh food, but it would be nice to be able to put some away for long term storage. As a just in case of a disaster or something bad happened. And the only way they knew how to do that was build more green houses. That would make it easier on their stocks of food that they had left in storage. All of which had come over with them to this cold world a little over two years ago.

After the meeting to bring everyone one up to speed it was very late and the sun had long set. The whole Triumvirate stayed in the settlement for the rest of the day and into the night, instead of going back to one of the ships to sleep. It did give the trio a chance to try the first chicken griller to open in the village. The family who opened it, had taken their two pet chickens they had shipped with them, and set up a hatchery while they were still restricted to the ships. They had been the ones to set up the first successful hatchery on the ships in the first place. They knew what to do, and they had worked extra hard to get every extra chicks they could and not waste them. They also were the first ones to find out, that Earth chickens could eat and even loved the local grass. It had almost a catnip like effect on the feather brains, but was also very healthy for them to eat. They also gave their chickens' whole clams, which were plentiful in the shallow water of the protected bay to eat. These two little tricks meant that each hen laid twice as many eggs in day compared to the rest in the village. That little secrets were kept for almost a year, before it slipped out to the rest of the settlement. It took just under six months for a chicken to go from an egg to laying more eggs. This increase in production, let the families already lead in chicken numbers, grow to a truly huge number in very short order. So large in fact, that they had to start employing people outside of their families. Just to help the small family take care of the growing number of beast.

Right now, the chicken ranchers, only sold ten chickens a day for food. It was a nice change from fish as the only meat available. Now that the Triumvirate had stopped giving out beef from the storage compartment the year before. Until tonight, the leadership had not stopped by to buy some of the cooked bird. That was because the price for the meat was out of reach for over 90 percent of the residence of the village. If things worked out as the family hoped. They would have a good sized and warm warehouse finished in a few more weeks or a month at the outside. The couple had paid for it out of their own pocket. They were getting to be well off compared to the rest of colonist. That is between selling the eggs, live chickens, cooked chickens, and the high grade fertilizer. The Triumvirate know that they were planning on upping the number of cooked chickens for sale pretty soon. To as many as two dozen a day in the next few months, but doing it slowly. All of the birds were animals that had stopped laying eggs, so were only good for eating food and being pets. Bob was looking forward to that day. Because just like everyone else. Bob was very tired of fish, after almost two years of having it in every meal he had eaten. He also hoped that selling two dozen full birds a day, would mean that the price would soon go down. At least to a level that most working people could afford to have once in a while.

When the Triumvirate all had called it a night, the Stapps were still not threw the village gates. The Stapps had not only a house to themselves in the village, but a storage building, and a pole barn combination. They had it built so that they could put things in and keep them out of the weather, on this wet and cold world. All of the buildings that were on the large size and custom designed. When they had come back into the settlement. It was very late at night, or if you wanted to call it very early in the morning. They parked there machine under cover of the pole barn section, but did not go to sleep. What they did do, was drag out a homemade telescope that they had made over a year ago. It was four times the size of the first one they made, in the machine shop of the Lucky Find. It was considered to be very well made. But considering how few people on PA Earth knew anything about telescopes, it was workable and had done the jobs asked of it so far. They were just lucky to know what they did, and smart enough to figure it out as they went with the device. It was small, with only a three foot in diameter mirror in the long wooden tube and a heavy base plate. It would look like a standard Dobsonian telescopes from the early 2010's, if the Stapps and crew had known about them.

When a runner came to Stapps home near the wall that was where they were still found. As the sun came up huddled around the telescope. The runner let them know, that they were wanted by the Triumvirate on the Lucky Finds main briefing room, for a meeting already set for 0900. The group of rogue scientist radioed the ship before sending the runner back. They asked if they could send a car to take them the few miles to the ships. They claimed it was because they were old and to tired, to make the long and wet walk after another all-nighter. The just barely teen age girl sprinted back to the ship to finish her task, and collect her payment. Not long after the blur of running teen had gone. One of the only two electric hover cars that had been down loaded pulled up to the pole barn. They were only used for emergency or tasks that trio think they would add value to support. The bleary eyed Scientist loaded up into the hover car, and were soon off to see the heads of the government.

Not one of the Triumvirates were surprised that the Stapps had gotten right to work on the little surprise that everyone had the day before. Payment would be decided later, the leadership was sure of. Right now however, they were just kids with a new toy or puzzle to figure out. They had brought a digital camera with them to the meeting, and were plugging it into the briefing room's large display. They still were not ready, when the three men that made up the leadership of the little group entered the room and took the worn seats arranged around the table.

When they were ready to give the briefing, which thankfully it did not that long before June Stapp was ready to give the few golden nugget of information to the three leaders of the settlement. "Okay we only had last night to find out what happened. The short answer is that we still don't know, but we did see this threw our little telescope." She hit a few buttons, and the screen changed from a white back ground with blue and red letters to something a lot different.

It was a blurry image now on display, but you could make out artificial items projected on the metal wall. Then shapes got clearer, as the images flipped through about two dozen different images. "We counted over forty different ships in orbit. To include these two monsters." June hit the advance button again. The first image, was of one ship that looked like an alligator with large box like skies connecting its four feet. The second image was a close sister to the first one, but it looked newer and meaner somehow. But a lot less animal shaped kind of way and more weapons looking in function. There was little doubt that she was a warship.

"We think they both are about half to 3/4rd of a mile long. We picked up some blurs coming from those boxes on the sides of the ships few times, but we don't know what they were. They could have been missiles, but we have not seen any more detonations. Nuclear or otherwise to confirm that observation." June was using a hand held remote to zoom in, but it was not adding any additional details. That the group of leaders could identify, without lots of help from the group of scientist giving the briefing

The meeting went on for another hour with John now doing most of the talking. The group of scientist did not have any more major information on who they might be. They had no idea if they were human, or otherwise, or of it they might be slavers, or maybe something even worse. The Triumvirate would have to find this out the old fashioned and hard way. They did ask for the Settlement to pay for the development of a new telescope, which would have a mirror twice as big as the one they had right now. They would use it to keep a better and clearer eye on what was going on in orbit over the planet. They would be able to keep it after they were done, and use it as they saw fit later. The three men did not have a problem agreeing to these requirements. It was the same agreement that had been worked out before on the two other telescopes the couple had in their possession. The three even got them to do an evening briefs to the staff and at Warehouse one if needed. They were even talked into offering classes at night on the telescope they already had. To anyone who wanted to know more about them. The total cost of the project would be credit on an engine replacement, on their massive Explorer class machine that was their walking laboratory. They would take as a replacement engine in the form of a nuclear, solid oxide, fuel cell or for the EX-Behemoth Super Explorer. That machine was sitting in Hold Number 2 of the Lucky Find, being unused or bought still to this date. The three men made a note to see how much engine life Sapp's Explorer robot had left on it. They hopped that they could use that information to gauge how long, they could get the Stapp's to work on credit to support the settlement. Some might have called that begin close to the edge of playing dirty pool. But if it was for the good of the Settlement, the three men were okay with using what they could to get the job done.

Over the next few days all the scouts made their way back to the settlement, one after the other as quickly and as stealthy as they could. The little village hidden under the trees, had been directly over flown twice by a fat little craft while the scouts had made their way home. They had also seen little dart shaped craft that flew near the ships, but not as close as the fat little ones had. It appeared that none of the over flying craft had seemed to have noticed the humans living below the over flying craft. The only reason that the people below "saw" them now, was that they were now looking for them. No one knew how long those type of craft had been flying around overhead without being noticed.

Each morning the scientist would brief the three men, on what they found during the long cold night with their eyes glued to the telescope. About the only thing they did find out, was at the end of the second night of watching. It seemed like some of the ships, were looking like they were coming into land somewhere on the planet. All the information was put out, and even briefed by the two scientists to whole village outside Warehouse 1. This cut down on the problems for the other three leaders, by an unknown number. By simply making all the information public as it was given to the three leaders. No one could claim that anything Earth shattering was being withheld from them. Everyone was on edge and it was only getting worse, with each over flight or near over flight. By the alien craft that was being picked up on passive systems.

 **2 week later**

The three leaders were in a meeting trying to figure out what they needed to do next. It had been two weeks since the orbital nuclear blast had shaken them. The only thing they knew about these strangers, was that three out of four of the ships they had seen that first night. Where no longer up there anymore, or view able from their location. Now there only major questions remaining were. "Where were they, how long would they be here, what do they want, and are they human?" Those were only the top of a long list of questions. But by no means were they the only questions on everyone's mind for the last few weeks.

The trio called a settlement wide town hall meeting at noon, around Warehouse 1. They announce that they wanted to send scouting missions out, to find out where this new visitors might be operating ground base. They wanted volunteers, but it would only be ground units that would be given the green light to undertake the scouting. The job will be a sneak and peak mission, with the focus on Sneak with the capital S. If you were not that type of person? Then you need not apply for the mission, thank you very much. They gave a brief run down on the rules, like they were not to fly above 25 feet above the trees or grass at any time. It was also put out that they would not be able to use their radar or radio systems past the 500 miles line away from the Safe Port Bay. That was all the area that they had mapped so far from the village. The area that they had mapped, was mapped in great detail and even had a mostly all-weather trail system hidden from any overflights with in those bounds of protective tree green limbs.

One of the hopes that the scouting missions would do? Was to find things that the growing settlement needed, along with finding the visitors. They had already covered the basics of shelter, food, and protection. Now they needed to start building the larger bits of infrastructure. That they needed to support their machines. Before the limited supply of spare parts, they had on hand ran out forever. When the first round of scouts return? They would have to see which of the paths would be cleared up or improved, to handle the increase traffic or other changes to improve them in anyway.

Right now each of the five main dirt roads ended, with a wooded building with some emergency supplies. Each of the buildings were connected to the settlement by a copper wire communication system. The wire communication system they had built, was completely made from materials they found on this planet after coming to it. The new trails and any new extensions would be mapped, expanded, and improved as needed to support the fallow on scouts. It was hoped that this would help speed them on their duel missions.

Bob was sitting alone in the main Warehouse thinking about that system, when he had the idea to find Dexter. It had not taken long for the rumor mill to point to Dexter, as being the one who somehow remote viewed the bay and passed it along to the leadership. Captain Kelly had tried to keep Dexter's part of helping out as quite as he could. In the end, it had not worked nearly as well as the sea captain had hoped it would. The poor man had been overwhelmed by all the people who want his help for every little thing, or help them to fix their lost magic user ability. He had not held up well under the assault, and started to drink heavily to cope with the stress. Kelly had to let him go of his ships duties. Captain Kelly did not trust him with access to major weapons systems on his ship, with his heavy drinking. He had not exactly been thrown into the mud, but it took his anchor or support system away. It was not that his new found power were much stronger on this planet. It was also that he was the only known magic user to still be effective. After Kelly had let him go, he had skills to fall back on. Dexter was able to keep his higher skills quiet for a while from the general population. Now he was getting a share of several high value mines, which he had helped the "owners" find after leaving the employ of Captain Kelly. His first find had been a massive Rutile crystals deposit not far from the wooden wall. The titanium oxide the crystals were made out of, was one of the key elements needed by the Settlement. But was very hard to find, even on Earth. It was mainly used by the armor patch making machine, down in the main machine shop of the Neptune's Revenge.

The desk sized machine could not make a suit of armor, but it could turn out 4 inch x 4 inch armor patches. That is, if it had the raw material on hand to make the armor squares. Dexter had also helped find one of the most pure Chalcopyrite deposits, anyone had ever heard of. It was between 40 to 50 percent pure copper, right out of the ground, before they even started smelting it. According to a contact working for the Triumvirate, Dexter had just gotten back about three week ago. He had been helping to find a possible Magnetite area across the bay. It turned out to be on that ridge line, which separated the ocean and the protected bay. If the labs reports are correct, this find was about 73% iron without putting the first bit of heat to it.

The profits from those finds had kept him in drinking alcohol, food and shelter. With the added benefit of keeping people away from him for a long time, while out looking around the planet. Bob wanted to remind Dexter that if he needed to talk and that he had an open invitation to see any of them at any time he needed or wanted to. He also had a list of things that the village would need in the future to keep growing. The single page document, was a list of minerals and ores. It was all of the things that they would really need in the future or sooner. If they worked hard enough, and had just a little luck break their way. Oh and they could hide from the possible slavers. Bob and Kelly had Dexter report to them. They worked on some ideas between them that benefited everyone in the room and the village as a whole.

While the meeting was going on with Dexter. Rex was starting to pack his favorite hover cycle for another long scouting trip. He had been getting bored over the last few months, which was something not so new for him. He needed that heart shot of adrenaline that living wild with things that might kill you around provided. The safeness of the planet had worn off of him many months ago. Whoever found out the most about the new visitors, would have some great stories to tell. He was also hoping that maybe even getting some extra perks as a bonus would be given out. The Triumvirate were not known for being stingy with bonuses. They were not just given out, like candy but they rewarded the extra effort someone had given.

The first problem was that a whole planet was a big place to hide. But these people had space ships, which had to help them somehow be found he knew it. Before he started packing, he had used his reputation, as the best scout, to get access to the plotting table on one of the ships. He plotted the flight paths of each of the overflying craft they had tracked. He was hoping to find some kind of pattern, which might lead him to their home base of operations After a few hours, he was not satisfied, but it did give him an idea of where to start to find the next piece of the puzzle. He checked back in at the desk, which was going to manage scouting areas. This managing desk, was to make sure the scouts were not leaving any gaps in their coverage. Rex gave them a vague area that he would be looking at, and it was marked on the main map along with the areas other scouts had told them. Who knew how true this data might or might not be.

Rex was finishing packing some last minute supplies. When he had signed up, to be a scout at the desk. He had been given a chit that he could turn in for 60 pounds of persevered fish, an NG-57 heavy duty ion blaster, and a new NG-IP7 Ion pulse Rifle. All the other times he had gone out over the last two years, he had only gone out with his trusty MP-10 pistol. This was very nice, he like everyone else, was short on ramjet rounds that made the pistol such a deadly weapon. He also had the C-14 rifle, which he had since the left the services of the Coalition States a few years back. They even gave him an extra pair long E-Clips fully charged, to go with each of the newly issued weapons. He was glad, when he had heard a rumor that the two remaining Juicers were not going to allowed to go out scouting. They however, had been activated as a QRF, if anything bad happened out there. The remaining Juicers could bring some very heavy firepower, strength, and speed to the battle, if someone had time to call for their help.

Thinking about the remaining Juicers, keyed Rex into thinking about Ron again. He had been the oldest of the Juicers, and had burned up about six months ago. His body was giving out, and they did not have the drugs or experience to try to detox any of them. So the Juicers could only watch, as they bodies slowly gave out to the abusing drugs. Those were the drugs they had use to augment their bodies, to fight the monsters that come calling on Earth. The average lives of the Juicers were about five years, without drugs to help even out some of the worse effects of the augmentation and ageing. It was a bad way to die for Juicers. Ron had other ideas on how to die. He had taken a hand built wooden 40 foot long human powered paddle-boat boat out to the mouth of the bay. This was where it opened to the larger ocean. He was "trying to hunt" one of the huge sharks that patrolled that area of the bay and ocean. They were eating whatever was flushed out of the rivers and the bay, by the changing and rushing tides.

He did catch and kill one of the 50 foot long and ten ton Semi-Megalodon sharks with a hand thrown harpoon, and his bare hands to finish it off. But not before the huge shark had done the same to Ron, by taking everything below the hips of that crazy man with its massive jaws. "Was he going to go out in that same type of way? Was he going to die on some kind of one more scouting mission, or something equally crazy?" He thought to himself when he threw his right leg over the cycle, and settled onto the wide padded seat. He did a little rocking back and forth, getting comfortable for what he was betting was going to be a long ride. "At least I don't have to worry about large animals that want to eat me." He was mumbling and everyone that walked by made sure not to take visible notice it. Scouts were strange, and could anger for the oddest of reasons. He had been out looking and had never seen a sign of any animals, just like the Stapps had said. These were his last thought as his machine went out the northern large wooden gate, that protected the little town and into the dark wet woods beyond. He had to open his mind for threats and thinking about other things could get a scout killed.

If someone had been watching this small part of this cold little world, they would had seen a gray streak cross about 150 foot of wide open grass field. This field separated the rest of the mainland woodland form an odd shaped set of woods, which just happen to border the edge of the little bay. Threw the rest of the day hover cycles and even few larger hover scout cars, left the segregated wooded area heading out into many different directions. They were all going deeper into the massive landmass, which dominated the world. As full night fell the activity stopped, and not even a speck of light could have been seen from above that part of the world. That would have been normal for these lost humans, on a cold world that they had started to set up a life for themselves on. After all light could draw enemies to them, and they did not like to be a target for anyone. This was something that had been drummed into the survivors of Earth.

The three men that headed the governing body of Safe Port Bay, did not have to keep a close eye on where every one of the scouts was going and how long they planned to be out in the wilds. That was why the trio had developed and trained good staff members for. If you were not good at your job, they would find someone that was, and you would have a new job found for you. What the trio did do, was go over every line of equipment listed. They also were visually checking every weapon, round of ammunition, and vehicle that they had on hand. It was just in case things went wrong, and gunfire was needed to be exchanged. It was after the evening meal, which they rejoined together on board the Neptune's Revenge. It was in the main briefing room that was by default, their main meeting location for the three leaders.

Max was the first in the briefing order tonight. He had been given the job of checking on small arms, and all of the body armor that had not been issued yet. "Well everyone has some kind of body armor, except the women that are more than six months pregnant. And all of the kids that are less than 4 foot 5 inches tall. I put out the notice at noon that we will be trading out all of the homemade stuff for better manufactured ones, to those interested. All they need to do is bring the homemade armor into Warehouse One to start the exchange. I think we need put out, to the ones that won't fit into regular body armor. That we will break into some of that load of Northern Gun made street cloths armor we have. I think that will cover most of the smaller people." The diet that they had been on. Had cut the number of overweight people in the settlement, to as near zero as a village could get and not fall under threat of malnourishment. "I also think we might want to pull it out an alert notice. Just to see if anyone knows how to make the different types of homemade body armor, into something useful for the Settlement. I was thinking maybe that it will give at least some protection for people that nothing else will fit effectively like hand carried shields. I would hate to see some mother, eight months long not protected, or some baby in arms exposed to harm." Max stopped talking and looked down at his notes, he had had a mental image that was entirely too vivid.

Bob had a wife that was one of those that did not have body armor that would fit around her twin carrying belly. He had been worry about those same issues, and had planned to bring them up in this meeting. "I like that idea. How about we offer up a contract to anyone. Who has the skills to turn that crap armor into very oversized coats and some kind of smock for little ones? I think that we could even keep them on hand, and issue them out to anyone who wants one. They will have to return them, when they are not needed, or they are out grown. It will give some extra protection if they want to use them, kind of like the maturity uniforms the CS Navy uses." Kelly nodded in agreement to what Bob and Max had said so far. It was a done and closed deal as far as the three men were concerned.

Max took down a long note on his computer. To have one of the staff to type up the official note, and post in to the Settlement as soon as possible. He looked up when he was done typing on this screen. "I will take care of that, I had been thinking of just giving out that homemade stuff to and let them work with it, until a few seconds ago as our best bet. I had complete forgotten about the probably it would not fit properly anyone. That is without a lot of work, and it does not fit right? It's not going to work right if at all." Max waited till he had all the notes done, before moving on the next item on his punch list.

"Now, as for small arms. In the settlement as of right now. I have about as complete information as I could get. But you all know, sometimes people are not that giving in that type of information." The other two men laughed softly but heart felt at Max's statement. Asking someone about what firepower and weapons they were packing? Might just give you a lot closer look at that firepower than you wanted, in the first place. Muzzle bores can be very cold against the nose or forehead.

Max let that settled down, before he started talking again. "Everyone above the age of 16 has a modern firearm of some kind. We only issued out some of the extra energy based weapons with extra E-clips to the scouts, if they wanted them. I will tell you, not one of them has turned any offered new weapon down. This might have thrown of my numbers off some, and it is not counting what anyone might have hidden away for a rainy day. What we have in storage, is not enough of anything one type of weapon, to fully outfit us to any type of standard, or uniform, or even a basic look. We have almost a complete sales list from Bandito Arms, a range of Coalition weapons, some Traxi stuff, but mostly we have Free Quebec and Northern Gun weapons. This does include a full shipping container of their newer ION based weapons, all still in the protective wrappings. We also have more than we can use, of weapons scaled for the Robots, Juicers, cyborgs and Powered Armor to use. They are both energy weapons and rail guns types, but it's an odd mix of this and that. Does anyone have ideas on how we might be able to use them?" Max stopped talking and let the question sit in the air, but the other two men did not jump in right away.

Max let his shoulders drop a little, then looked back at his notes and started talking again. "About the only thing I can think of for them. Is somehow using them in some kind of fixed defense point on the walls. I also checked out and re-inventoried the special weapons lockers." The Special Weapons Lockers had been set up to hold rare weapons. Like the stuff you used to get from Naruni Enterprises before the CS drove them off planet. Those were items that were made off planet or possibly even in another dimension. Some were new in the box, but others were captured and or repaired items. They also had small but still a growing list of magic weapons, which had not worked since the first day on this new planet. "We also have a container of mixed conventional damage weapons. They cover the range between old style revolvers, weak assault rifles, old machine guns, and even a couple of recoilless rifles. I can send you an updated list, but I don't think it's worth the time right now."

Max smiled back up at the group, but he was thinking about those Recoilless Rifles. Why would that old man have something like those weapons on his ship in the first place? Now he could ask a question, which had be bothering him for over a year now. "Captain Kelly. Why did you had those two monsters mounted on the stern of his ship? Then you donated them, along with 500 rounds of various types for the two village use." He tilted his head to one side and had a sly smile on his face to take the sting out of any words he might say next. "Why on Earth, did you have those ancient beasts mounted on your ship in the first place? When you could have had real weapons mounted in their place?"

Captain Kelly had heard this question more than once in his life. So he had a comeback ready, when this question raised its ugly head again at this table. "Well Max, I have them for two reasons. One, is that sometimes you don't always want to blow the bottom out of an enemy boat you're trying to capture. The other reason is that the ammunition is cheap, and you can be found it almost anywhere that sells medium and large caliber weapons ammunition. Something my father learned a long time ago, is that you can't say that about rail guns rounds you know. I also found out that they had some other uses, which are not all about a how much firepower you have. I have also use them to hunt some of the larger animals, that live back home in the deeper water. You would be surprised how well, and fast a single HE round from one of those things can fill your fishing nets with food very quickly. On top of that you can get some very odd types of reloads that are useful, like wood and bone. They work great against vampires"

Kelly was waiting for the other man to say something else, but Max just nodded his head in agreement and put his notes away. Max looked to the other side of Kelly and gave a nod of his head to the other man in the room. That was the sign that he was done with is part of the briefing. Max was still thinking about what Kelly had said, but he was not going to ask any more questions about that subject. That is until he had time to really think about what had been said.

Bob was the next person to brief, and decided now was the time to start his part while Max removed the crow he just been given to eat again. "I might have a few ideas to pass along which might let us use those larger scale weapons more effectively. The first item on my list was land transportation. I went back over what transportation assets, we still have under lock and key. We have ten armed hover cycles and twenty unarmed hover cycles of various types and makes. For land based transport. We have exactly forty of the four wheeled off road transports left along with a dozen civilian hover cars. They are battery or liquid fueled but all are unarmed. We also have four each old style Coalition Command Cars, Scarab Officers Car, and Skull Patrol Cars. Again these are all items that were not claimed to be owned by passengers or crew-members. We do not have any heavy armed tanks but we do have four VTOLs and four large APC's. We also had the pair of larger cargo carries. There are the six fully repaired Sky cycle in storage. It's too bad the other ones were good only for spare parts. But that should keep the one's flying for some time longer. That is unless they have a catastrophic accident or something shoots them down on us. I was thinking about those heavy weapons before Max brought them up tonight. I have an old book in my office, which I was re looking at a few weeks ago. On one of the pages was image with something called a gun jeep or gun truck, I'm not sure what it was. It's a light four wheeled off road vehicle, which trades cargo capacity and passenger's capability. So that it can carry a heavy machinegun or antitank missile launcher in their place. Can we see if we can do something like that? With those smaller vehicles that we have not given out and the larger scale weapons?"

Max was stunned, but he had worked with these men for some time now, and recovered quickly. But somehow these two men could pull the strangest reference out sometimes, and just threw them on the table. With a shake of his head side to side Max asked. "Can I get a copy of those images? I can take them to some of the village workshops, and see what they think about the ideas. Give me a couple of days to find out what can or might be done, or even if they might have some workable ideas or not. I can then see if there is a cost in getting any of the work done that they might suggest."

Bob gave a nod to Max. "I can have Sophia scan the whole book and send a copy to you. Maybe you and your contacts can figure out what Sahara or a Nam might be." Bob looked toward the other Captain and did a chin point to Kelly. "That's all I got for now."

Now it was Kelly's turn to update the other members of the Triumvirate on the tasks he had done. "As agreed, I checked out what has been stored on my ship, which we could use for the defense of our little village. We have 120 combat robots of various makes and models that are not assigned or purchased by individuals yet." Kelly stopped talking for a second to catch breath, but this was delayed a little by Max's reaction.

Max let a soft whistle out between his slightly parted lips. He did not realize that it was high pitch, and acted like nails on a chalk board to the others in the room. They all had seen the weapons break out before, as the weapons of combat had been found in the cargo holds. Until now no one had looked that closely at the totals, which had accumulated by the inventory exploration. Until right then, it had not settled in with how much firepower, they had been setting on for almost two years now. With the units that protected each ship for security and what the passengers had loaded were added in. The little settlement had a little over 220 heavy combat robots to defend themselves with. That was more than most mid-sized kingdoms, back home could claim to be in their order of battle. That was more than the major powers, could field at a major base of operations. Much less a forward field site or any village under a hundred thousand in population. In short it was very impressive amount of firepower.

Kelly was not done yet, so after shooting Max a look to stop. He was ready to continue his part of the briefing update. "We also have 600 suites of unassigned but operational power armor in my cargo holds, safely locked down. That's a lot of available firepower, but we are critically short trained pilots for both types of combat systems to effectively use them. The equipment quality ranges from ChipWells and Bandito's stuff. All the way up to Coalition and Triax's built combat units, and everything in between those two quality levels. We also have good supply of spare parts for them, to include replacement engines of the nuclear, Solid Oxide, and batteries types for both types of combat systems. I have no idea what fits in what type of machine, just that we have some extras locked down and protected from the environment."

Kelly took a loud breath, and wait to see if anyone had any questions. When no one seemed to want him to stop this time, he went on with this list. "Now to the ammunition count on hand, for our heavy damage giving shooters. I did not count what each person in the settlement has, or might have, or what are in the magazines of our ships. So it's not the complete total, only what we can offer as reloads for combat operation that we might have to do." Each of the other two men gave a simple head nod, to let him know they understood the limitation and Kelly went on with this report.

"I also did not break them down by the warhead types, but we have 500 long range missiles. I do know that we do have only four nuclear warheads, but I did see quit a few Heavy Proton warhead types. We have a little over 1200 medium range missiles with a few Multi-warhead types that will fit them." Kelly gave a chuckle as he continued to talk. "I think we have a few of every type of warhead but we have more of the more common warheads. The totals for the short range missiles are a little over 2000 of them. We also have wide range of warheads that include knock out gas and fire retardant warheads, as well as the "normal" types of warhead. The mini sized missiles count is at around 3000 missile bodies. The only warhead type, I did not remember seeing is smoke. I don't think that there is going to be too much of that type work to be done, for it to be any issue. Major Weston to me HE and Plasma rounds make nice fires." Kelly was thankful that Max did not make the noise again, but the shocked look on the other two was still nice to see on their faces.

With a sly smile Kelly went to this next item in his notes that he needed to cover. "While I was doing that little inventory I stated to think about something. I notice something was missing from our list of strategic materials we were tracking. It took so doing and a lot of help, but I found and move to my ship from Warehouse 3. Almost a thousand extra seeker systems, for different types and class of missiles. We will have to see if we can use them or not, besides using them for spare parts that is. The next part, well it turns out we are lucky. It turns out that all most all of our rail guns, take the same sized ammunition. There are some odd ducks out there in the settlement and in our cargo holds. I don't know what we will do about them, unless we can find a way to make the different sized rounds that will fit them. But we do have 50,000 rounds available for the Rail guns in storage, all nice and packed in boxes. Now that may seem like a lot more, than it really is. At forty rounds a burst, it will go quicker than you might think. Trust me I have had to restock my ammunition bunkers, after going through what I "knew" was enough for a few dozen gun fights."

Now Kelly thought it was time to bring up something, which will not make them very happy. "I would like to bring up something that we have talked about before, and was voted down every time. Circumstances have now changed enough for me to think it's worth another look. I feel it's my duty to the safety and welfare of us all." Kelly looked around to the two other men. He looked each of them levelly in the eyes, one at time before he finished saying what was on his mind.

A groan from the other men around the table greeted Kelly's ears, and he could read their faces that matched the sound coming from them. They all hated rehashing things over and over again. Kelly took the bull by the horns, and jumped in with both feet before they could get mentally entrenched. "I think we need to test and then start training new operators, for the Power Armor and Robot units." As soon as the statement hit the air, eyes rolled to look at the metal ceiling of the room. As the evening went on for the three men, they worked on the idea. And around the village, life and work went on about the ships, under the protective branches of the massive trees.

 **New Caprica**

 **465 Days after the Hall of the Colonies**

 **2 years 7 month 25 days AT**

It got dark very fast in this mountain range after the sun went down over the western horizon. It was a complete lack of any light except, the back lighting provided by the glow on the nebula glowing in blues, greens, and whites overhead. The mountain range was craggy and cold, like a bad mix between the Adirondack and the South Gila mountains in the Pecos Empire. On one of the highest peaks of the mountain range was a speck of something. If you looked close enough and had a lot of luck, you might see a slight yellow-red glow on one side of the tall rocky mountain. It was not on the top of the pillar of cold rock, but a little lower from the crest. The mass of the mountain would block most of the line of sight to the small protected fire burning on the side of the mountain. If you got closer, you would be able to see the fire was covered on all sides by flat rocks. This arrangement made it so that the all of the light and heat would only go one way. And that way, was towards the odd mass of almost rock looking cloth. This was not a fire set up to be a joyful area, but more like something to fight off the cold. It was so that a person could live in the high cold, and not much else with its meager flames produce heat. Off to one side of the well covered fire, was a hover cycle. It was propped up and ready to go in a split second, if a threat make its presents known the unmoving human. The one person that was near the fire, but not staring into the small and bright flames was a man with a lot on his mind. The mind and eyes were the only things that were moving of the covered human.

Rex was upset, very upset. He had been back for resupply twice now, and he still had not seen a sign of what he was looking for. Failure was not something he was used to have to accept in a long time. The only thing that could be called "on the bright side", was that no one else had found them either. Rex took a very small bit of comfort in that little tidbit of information, because he was the best scout on this planet. A flash of bright light fallowed by a streak of red and orange caught his eyes, not far off of the line his eyes had been holding. He had hoped that he might see one of the strange ships reenter the planets heavier atmosphere layers. This he hoped, was not a scouting mission craft but maybe it was going to land at the stranger's base of operation. He quickly picked up a well-used night vision binocular, and started to track the fire ball. As it made its way from north to south from his location on the mountain top. He was still tracking it when the deep boom that a supersonic craft made washed over him, in the classic double thunder clap that could only be made by a very high speed object. He was able to track the craft against three different land marks, before he lost his target in the dark sky. Before the fireball went over the horizon from him and disappeared from view. Now he smiled with a full set of yellow teeth showing. It had worked! It looked like he was going the right direction after all. The craft was moving fast and it would take him a long time cover the distance, which the high flying craft had covered in less than an hour.

Rex let his mind go over the contents still packed down on his speedily little craft. He still had three months of food backed on his craft. It was not like he could just pop a hog or something, to extend his limited food supplies. That would give him another month to a month in a half of scouting, before he would have to turn back for another resupply. When he thought about the route he would be using to get back to the settlement. He wondered how much the road will have been extended, since his last trip back. That was one job, which he was very glad he did not have to do. He loved scouting, but scouting for something as slow moving as a road? Having to do that in such a way that they had to keep from being seen from the air was dull work. Rex gave himself a slight shutter, and it was not because of the cold. He would rather pull the hair out of his nose one hair out at a time, than scout a path for a trail/supply road.

While Rex was watching the fire ball in the sky, a few thousand miles away the leaders of the Safe Port Bay Settlement were looking at the greatly expanded and detailed map. It was of the explored parts of the planet that they knew about. The road network was always expanding, slowly but steadily away from the protected bay. It looked like a spider's webbing spreading across the planet like some kind of malignant disease. They only had one bulldozer to support five different main roads or access ways they were building, and now maintaining. They were taking in all the scouting reports, then plotted out the information almost daily to all of the plotting devices. Then they would send a second scout team out to make a starter trail that would be cut with hand tools. The new extended trails were marketed and mapped out in both digital and hard copy formats. They would be passed along to the long ranged scouts, as they got ready to leave out again for another set of deep scouting mission. These slowly extending trails would make the trips back quicker for the other scouts. That was because they would not have to spend so much time slowing down and dodging round obstacles, as they made their way back to the few support locations. If anything worth wild was found it was marked on the maps, and a third team was sent out. But the still unknown strangers had not been found by any of the teams and this was starting to ware on both the scouts and everyone else in general.

The last step was that the Rhino would be sent out, to make a wider and smoother road to whatever was interesting. Any cut trees or large bits of wood would be loaded on the back of a NG-AT-26 Road Buster. Then it would be brought back to the settlement to be turned into lumber, or wood gas, or any of a number of much needed items for the stranded population. Besides mapping out more of the planet. The scouts had already found all the ingredients needed for making heavy damage resistant hydraulic cement. They should be able to start making the first loads of that very useful item, in only a few more days. Wooden Forms already were going up behind the main wooden palisade wall, to hold the wet mixed stuff even now. If their luck held out a little longer, they would be making it by the wheel barrel loads by the end of the week. Max was kicking himself, every hour for weeks now. He had been the one, which had the most heartburn about paying for scouting missions. That is before the nuclear explosion made it imperative. He could have been using that high strength concrete for years now. That is if he had not been so aggressive, about objecting to the cost of those scouting missions. Now it was proven that they would have been worthwhile. Mother Nature is a hell of a teacher, she gives you the final exam before giving you the homework.

While Rex was plotting were a fire ball might have gone on his detail map, and trying to stay warm. Captain Kelly was waiting on the tree covered wooden dock trying not to pace back and forth. Dexter had worked hard to be qualified to pilot the Crayfish amphibious submarine. It was allowing Dexter to detail explore areas of the bay that had not been looked at that closely before. He had found a nice sized deposit of gadolinium and neodymium already, but it was all under the bay's cold gray water. Dexter had pulled every favor on the books for the training on the odd little submarine/crawler. He wanted to recover the minerals that they needed for high temperature magnets and high temperature laser lenses for himself. He was not going to "let" someone else be the front person, and take a major cut of what he had found this time. Kelley checked his watch, again. Dexter was over due to return by six hours with his first load and Captain Kelly was worrying. If something happened to that specialized submarine? The Sea Bats and a few of his underwater optimized Power Armor or Robots have to do the job of getting the ores out of the water. It would take a lot longer and use more manpower, to bring up the same amount ores as that the Crayfish could do by itself. Kelly was just reaching for a land line phone. When something broke the surface of the water by the launching point they first used to access the land threw the Near Mangroves patch.

On this planet just like on some parts of the old Earth, when something disturbed the water at night, a family of microbes would give off flash of odd green light. The Settlement did not have any external lights put out, so Kelly could clearly see a V shaped light getting closer to the shore very clearly. As the square shaped ship rose from the water, six rows of V shaped lights expanded around a dark center. If this would have been the place Kelly had grown up and lived on? He would have sounded the alarm in a heartbeat, if not faster. Instead he just walked a little quicker than normal, to the dirt and rock boat ramp at the water's edge. This planet did not have any animals that would come on to land or on to the dock for that matter. So he just waited until enough of the square beast was out of the water, that he could hear the engines and treads in operations. Then he would pass the alert to the nearest guard point or team.

Captain Kelly and one of the guard force people in a SAMAS suit waited for the slow moving amphibious sub, to make its way completely out of the dark cold water. The little multi uses submarine did not look like it had, when It had left the day before from this same spot of almost dry dirt. It was now covered in rope nets holding large misshaped rocks all over the top and high walled sides of the Crayfish. The guard in the CS made SAMAS suit opened up his visor to relay a message to the waiting Captain. The Pilot told Kelly that the crew leader, wanted to take the whole vehicle into Warehouse 3 to unload. The SAMAS would be the ground guide for the still moving Crayfish, so no one could get hurt walking around the large track mounted sub in the dark with no lights. It took about half an hour to get the slow moving machine threw the large trees with the homes built nearby. It was slow but an uneventful passage of time. There were very few people moving around this time of night in the Settlement. Soon the odd shaped machine was stopped again, and no damage had been done to any building between the Warehouse and the Bay's water edge. When Dexter climbing out of the cab with arms loads of rock he was followed by the crew that had been crazy enough to go with him, in this underwater adventure The man was smiling and as much as Kelly could tell. Dexter was sober, or doing a very good job of acting that way.

Dexter saw the warship Captain standing near, and walked over with lumps of rock still in his arms. "Sir, I did not expect to see you so soon. I wanted the lab guys test these first before I reported in." He half raised the arm load of fist sized rocks held in some kind of fishnet style bag to keep them from falling out of his arms. "The systems on the Crayfish said what they are, but I had no way knowing how pure the rare earths are in each rock." He turned and used his head to point at the box shaped submarine. "I picked up as many rocks, as we could and still come in close to our timeline." He tried to look down, but the arm load of rocks was in the way. "I just did not think that outside nets would cause that much drag, and slow us down so much." His head came up some, but he could not look Captain Kelly in the eyes. "I think the rocks might have come down the big river, or washed down off of the barrier ridges. I just don't know enough yet, to tell where they came from. But there should be more than enough down there to meet our needs for a long time on the bay floor alone. I plotted out were we found each rock, that will help if we need to find more." The man had a huge smile on his face, he was very proud of himself and what he had been able to accomplish.

Captain Kelly slapped the younger man on the shoulder, almost hard enough to over balance the man. "Why don't you lock everything up in the warehouse, and get some sleep in a real bed first. You can bring the lab guys in to run the test on your find later, after you get some sleep. If the ores all check out? Then the clam is all yours Mr. Woods. You can rent any of the equipment you need to pull up what village needs, as we need it. And again, Great Job Dexter!" Kelly turned away the massive building, and headed back to his cabin on his ship. One of these days, I might have to take them up on the offer to have my own place dirt-side. He was thinking as we walked through the night.


	8. Chapter 8 Scouts out (chp 5)

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Chapter 5 Scouts out**

 **New Caprica,**

 **635 Days after the Hall of the Colonies,**

 **3 years 24 days AT**

Rex was a very happy man, but you would not know it if you saw him face to face. That is if you knew him very well and could see the slight twinkle in his brown eyes. He had been able to pick up the scent of his target at last. He had been going in the same general direction from the mountain top, but it had been tough going with the thick wilderness all around him. It was compounded by the lack of any of those strange craft flying overhead, to make sure he was going on the right path. That had changed four days ago with a bang, well a muffled whoosh of high speed moving air. Three craft, one of the boxy type and two of the dagger shaped had flown almost directly over his head around noon. Rex was able to see that they turned west between a sharp faced hill, and cliff point about twenty miles along the path he was heading. It had been mostly due to luck that he could see them threw a thin spot in the overhead greenery.

All of those craft had been flying well below the speed of sound, so Rex had time to track them with only his eyes. With this information now gleaned. He changed his direction of travel and it had paid off yesterday. It had been when he cresting a wooded ridge that was barely worth the name or title of a ridge. On the flat plain behind that line of low brush covered hills, he was laying on. Before his eyes was an expanse of over 50 space ships of different sizes and shapes, spread out before him on the lower land. Around the ships it looked to be a shanty town, which looked like it had grown up around the grounded ships since they had landed.

Rex quickly setup a hide site that he would be able to observe the impromptu landing field without being seen. This feat was amazing to accomplish and not have been spotted doing the set up. That was because it was daylight while he was setting it up, and in full view of the off shanty town. It took him three times as long as it should have, but in the end it was done good enough to do the job he required of it. Rex had no idea of what these strangers counter scouting technology or procedures might be. So he thought it best that he set up a cold camp at the base of the hill. It was on the side of the hill facing away from the strangers landing field in the nearby tree line. When he was done setting up a hidden base camp, this took less time than the hide site on the ridge even though it was larger. He made sure it was concealed along with his hover cycle to his high standard.

Rex returned back to his small hide site as stealthily as he could. Even sliding, on his belly for the last twenty or thirty feet of the way. He had with him, a powerful digital camera and a monster sized lens to take very long range but also very detailed images. He made multiple images of each of the ships that was laid out below him. It was during one of those shots, that he just happened to play his camera over an opening to a tent like area. With the flap open to the outside, Rex now could see who was living in them and take some rapid fire images. They were human, or as far as he could tell they were human, but as he had found out more than once on Rifts Earth. They might look Human but they could end up being very far from human on closer inspection. He remembered one time, he was having drinks with a lovely woman who had been on the ship with him for the last two months. Then it had turned out she was a young dragon in disguise. That had been when he had been working with Kelly for a year or so and no one had given him a heads up before the date. Let's just say that it was a little weird the next morning when she had told him, that did not count that it was his first "date" after his wife had died.

Rex shook off the memory and went back to taking images of the camp below him. Rex spent the rest of the day taking images of anything, which might even look to be worth the battery power to take the image. Just before the sun went down, Rex exited out of the back side of his hide site and slowly makes his way down the muddy hill. He was going to the camp site for a cold meal, water, and a chance to relive himself. All the things you did not want to do in your scout hide if you did not have to. One of the first things a good wilderness scout learned, was never try to find your temporary cold camp for the first time at night. After taking care of those basic needs, he took a quick nap. A few hours later he made his way back up to the hill side hide. Rex took few minutes to make sure everything was as it should be to his ears. When he did not detect anything out of place, he attached a night vision lens to the camera and went back to work. He watched the camp taking as many images as he could, of the people and ships as they sat on that open field at night. He was thinking that maybe they could find something interesting, if they compared the different images. Say like say hidden weapon mounts, defensive points, and who might be a high value target if things went badly. As the night wore one, he was starting to worry more and more that something was not right with what he was seeing. What felt wrong was that he had not seen any weapons, except for the maybe the dart shaped small ships and that was not right to him? It was setting off all kinds of alarms in his gut, something was not right but he could not put his finger on it besides the missing hand carried weapons. When the sun started to come up again, he made his way back to his small camp from some more much needed sleep.

Rex woke up before the sun was straight over head. His base camp was simply a camouflaged canvas type covering that covered him from all side from wet and viewing. For heat he had a small field heater. For a pillow and blanket, he was using his favorite, but very worn ghillie suit. He had been asleep for about six hours, give or take. It was not enough sleep by any means, but he could do this for a while. At least before it would start to adversely affect him in any measurable ways. After taking care of himself, he pulled out one of his other ghillie suit from a storage box on his well-hidden hove cycle. He had half a dozen of the things, which he had made by his own hand over the long years of his life. This one was not his favorite suit, but the open plains was bare of trees and gray, not green and growing. He made a few adjustments to the odd looking outer covering by adding a few more local grown limps and weeds. Then he rolled it in a convenient shallow gray mud filled puddle, which were only a few feet away from his hidden camp site. He gave it a quick, but very hard few shakes to fling the water droplets off. Then threw it on, and slowly walked or stocked back up to the hide site on the ridge top. With the sun at the current angle slipping past noon, it would make him harder to see by the group living below the other side of the brush and weed covered ridge.

Rex did not enter the hide site, but just watched the camp. More importantly, he was looking at the ground between the ridge and the first of the grounded metal ship. He wanted to take advantage of the light this time. It was pushing his luck some, but it could be worth it if he could find out something useful. He got down on his belly and started to inch his way closer to the strangers all in one landing zone and camp. He spent the whole afternoon moving as slowly towards his target as he could. An ant would have been making better speed, than he was this afternoon but he was stealthier than an ant. It was well after full dark, and he was now only about 200 feet from the edge of the camp. He stopped, he had seen this little hollow in front of him from the hide on the ridge. It had been his target for his destination all afternoon. Rex's head was moving as slow has his body had moved down the ridge. While he was using his combination image intensifying and IR goggles to scan the area around him. He was looking first for security and then for useful information.

Rex was contemplating if he wanted to move closer still, when his heart stopped beating. Was that a rock slipping or a foot step? Then Rex stopped breathing all together when he heard it again. It sounded like a boot softly sliding across the wet rocks and half dried mud. Rex slowly turned his head, so that he could see better off to the left. That was where he thought the sound had come from. Sure enough, threw the great light gathering ability of the goggle, he could tell something was different. He could see a little mound of rocks that had not been there before. When he had made his way to his current position. Each good ghillie suit was different, like a finger print on people. Most good scouts could even tell who might be under one of these suits, if they were close enough. But it was too dark to see if it was another scout from the settlement, or from a different group all together. Things had just gone from scouting, to close quarter's life threatening in the space of a few heart beats. The odds said that it had to be another scout from the settlement, because he had not seen any signs of anyone else. "Well, you only live once," thought Rex has he did something very dumb for a scout. Well, sometimes you had to roll the hard six to go forward in life.

Rex picked up a small rock that his own ghillie suit was covering, and dropped it onto another larger rock that was also under his covering suit. The movement would not have been seen from outside of the suit, but the sound of the dropping rocks would carry far enough. The little bit of a cracking sound the falling rock made, had the desired effect. The other suit stopped its forward movement, like a car hitting a brick wall. Rex pushed his lips together and gave a very soft Whippoorwill bird call. This bird song was the challenge code for the group of deep ranging scouts for the last two years. The good scouts that did this for a living, even before they were brought to his new home by the Rift, could mimic a list of animal sounds. Rex could see the "rock" move slowly, ever so slowly it moved until it stopped moving again. It was a very good suit, because if you would have been watching it from more than fifty feet away. You would not have known that two beings were looking at each other within spitting range of each other. After what was only a few minutes but felt like hours, a very soft hoot owl sound crossed the short distance between the two artificial bumps on the dark muddy field. The Owl sound was the correct counter sign to Rex's call. Rex was finally able to relax his finger from the Ion pistol's trigger, which he had silently drawn out of its hip holster when he had picked up the small rock. He had been ready to use it, if he had to. At this range, it was the only way he could think of that would let him live for a few seconds more if things when badly. In Rex's line of work, a few seconds could mean your life or a very painful death.

Rex moved the hand that was between the two bulges on the field, and moved it out from under the cover provided by his suit. He was exposing it to the night air, and pointed back towards his hide site. The other scout did not give any sign of seeing the hand, but Rex could tell that the other scout was slowly re-positioning. He hoped that was what he was seeing, and now he could move the way he had pointed. With the sun being all the way down, they were now able to move quicker with a lot lower risk of being seen by the people in the grounded ships. They only had to move without making any noise that would carry over the damp night air. When a breeze picked up, that was coming from the camp towards them. They were almost able to make it the rest of the way to the hide site at a military high crawl, instead of dragging their nose in the wet dirt to lower their profile.

After a few hours of movement with both of the scouts moving one behind the other, they were on the other side of the low hill. They were now safer from being seen form the camp below, but still not totally safe. When the camouflaged suits came off Rex was not surprised, that it was David Boone under the other camouflage suit. David was a very good scout himself, and Rex had studied how he had moved on the way back to the "safe" side of the hill. Since everyone moves differently, he was almost 100% sure it was David half way to the hide site he had pointed to. They were a good bit of distance away from the stranger's camp, but they did not talk between each other after getting under the protective cover. Instead they used a form of hand signs that was a cross of styles that some people used, if they had lost the ability to hear and implants did not work for them. The main difference from "normal" sign language was that it could be done one handed. That way the scouts could keep one hand on a weapon's trigger, at all times.

It took some work, but when Rex showed the other scout the images he had taken with a date stamp to prove he had been there first. David was a bit crest fallen at the proof of the information. This meant the discovery was Rex's to manage and not his. When Rex noticed that David did not have any camera equipment with him, he had to ask a question. Rex asked how he was going to get proof of the find, if he had found them first. David smiled a big goofy grin and simply held up a Boom Mike with a recorder attachment at the base of the device. Rex did a palm to head smack to himself, it was not a mental smack but a physical one. The thought of bring something like that on this mission had never crossed his mind, not even a glimmer of the idea. It was a stroke of genius on David Boone's part, and Rex took the time to let him know it. That was going to get David some major points, when they got back to base. One of the hardest things to do when meeting new people was simply communicating with them. Before they started shooting at you and yours, and blood flowed onto the ground. The images that Rex was bringing back would provide some information, but the recordings that David had. That would help the command work out how to talk with the strangers. Only a little thing like the future of his people, was what he had forgotten about. Not being able to think two and three steps ahead, for the big picture things had been a problem. And it had been point out to him in the past, but it looked like he still had not fixed that blind spot.

Both of the two men used their surveillance gear from the inside of the hide site that Rex had made. They quickly decided that they would not get anything useful on this type of boom mike, at least at this distance. Instead of wasting time not being productive they went down to Rex's cold camp, and got a few hours' of safe sleeping. They both were up well before dawn and back at the hide site for more observation, okay call it more spying. David had never used the boom mike in condition like they had at the hide site before. So they did some testing with both men using head phones connected to the parabolic dished mike. They were able to use the early risers' from the camp below, to help them to gauge how close they would need to get before it would pick up most of the voices. As it turned out they would not have to get that much closer to the camp, and chance being discovered with the device by these strangers. They only needed to be about a quarter as far as they had been the day before, when the two had "bumped" into each other. They "only" need about two hours to get into the closer position to do their spying. Now they could effectively gain the information to start to fill the memory storage device. They had no idea what was going on in the camp, that is besides it being some kind of shanty town living. This they were used to, but that was about all they could work out.

The language the two scouts were picking up was like nothing anyone of them had heard before or knew, and this was baffling. Between the two of them they could speak or understand a dozen different languages from back on Rifts Earth. That did not seem to be helping them here in the cold mud of this world. They spent the next three days recording all the talking and taking images of the space ship. That included take images of the taking off of two of the box type ships all the way till they were lost from sight. They even were able to get some very good images of them loading and unloading people from the small craft and a larger type of flying ship. What Rex's was the most proud of? Was when were able to get more than a few shot of the one man, dagger ships. It had been taking off and doing some fancy flying over the camp for no apparent reason that Rex could work out. It reminded Rex of an Airshow he had seen once outside of New Quebec. He was thinking more and more that they were human after all.

When they made their way back to the hide site for the last time, they both worked to pack it up and return the area to pristine shape. The two also worked together to take down the cold camp Rex had set up the first day, but both men had been using. They hiked together to where David had hidden this transportation, a CS Command Car clone made by Northern Gun. It took some work but they repacked the little hover jeep with both men's equipment. Rex's 1000 pound Turbo hover cycle went in and over filled the back seats of the open topped car. All of their regular gear went into the area were the tail gunner would have been, and anywhere else they could get it to fit. The hard part was making it so that nothing would fall off of the hover car while it was moving. It took a lot of rope and tape, almost every bit both men had to do the job to their satisfaction. The car should have held five people in full armor and weapons, but with everything the men two had? It was a cramped and overweight ride away from the newly found stranger's camp/landing field.

They had over 10,000 miles to go to get back to the Settlement, which they called home for the past two years. The pair wanted to make the best time they could, so they would drive and sleep in shifts along the way, limiting the stops that they would have to make. The little open topped hover car should have been able to make a top speed of 200 mph and cruise at around 150 feet off the ground. But with the load it was now carrying. it was making only 100 mph. It was not that way all the time, because sometimes they could get up to almost to 150 mph for short stretches. That was only if the ground was flat and nothing in the way, like trees or roots that caused them to slow down to avoid the obstructions.

David and Rex did not stop to eat or for any other reason, but to change drivers and answer the call of nature. 98 hours after leaving the grounded space ships, they pulled back into the Settlements massive wood faced gate tired and haggard. After checking in at the ship's night desk, they were directed to be given a hot meal, and went to sleep for a few hours in a nice warm bed out of the wet. The three leaders were just getting up to start their day, and the deck officer did not think these two scout's reports were import enough to rush them. So it would be some time before the three leaders of the Safe Port Bay Settlement were told about the early returning scouts. That might have been a mistake on the part of the night duty officer. Just a small one, but still a mistake.

Captain Kelly was not the type of person to yell. Would he raise his voice to be heard over the sounds of battle? Oh yes, but when he was mad he was not what you would call a yeller. He had learned a long time ago, that it might make you fill better for a few seconds. But it normally only made things worse in the end. When you started yelling, any chance of working something out went right out the window in bright red flames. But right now he did not care one little bit. He took another deep breath and his volume went through the roof of the metal topped bridge. "So let me get this straight, LT. Some scouts return with news, which say they had found what we had been looking for over a year to find! And you decided that it was not important enough to rush any of us to start our day an hour or two early?!" He pointed to the two other men that were the other heads of the government. The Lieutenant was not part of Kelly's ship's crew, but was the fourth officer from the Lucky Find. This was his only recourse to try to fix this problem and then quickly decided not to. "Tell me son. Exactly how long have you been an Oxygen thief? I will say that you are the biggest waste of skin, I have ever had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting in my life. That my boy, is a long list and you are now sitting at the very top of that list now!" Kelly was fighting to control his hands, he could start to feel that he was losing the battle not to reach out and shake the lieutenant so hard his hair could come off his head. At the last second Kelly turned snake quick to look at the other ship's commander. "Bob this is your deck officer. But I would like to never have him on my bridge again, in any capacity at all." Kelly took a breath and tried again to force his blood pressure down. "Well maybe besides cleaning the deck. On second thought, I would not trust him to even to that, and not monumentally screw it up!" Kelly was looking at Max, because he did not trust himself not to grab the rock with lips, and throw him off the ship physically with his own two hands. The young officer was standing next to the other ship's commander, almost like he was trying to hide from the enraged Captain Kelly.

Bob had been very quiet during the whole if one sided exchange, but he was red in the face and down his neck line below his thick warm shirt. He also was not sure he could control his temper any better than the other ship's commander had, but he had a job to do. With that idea, he center his thoughts around. He took a relaxing deep breath and let it out his nose. He, unlike Kelly was known for yelling when someone screwed up this badly. He took a second deep breath, but he did not yell. His voice, in fact was very soft, and could be barley heard more than a few feet away. "Joe you are to report to the XO. You will tell her, that I said you're a rock with lips." When the other man did not start to move Bob could feel his blood pressure starting to climb higher, and well across the dangerous level. Now he used his outside voice at full volume. "That means you can leave the bridge NOW!"

Tom turned and slinked his way to the exit hatch on one of the bridge wings. It would have been faster to use the inside stairs. However Captain Kelly was blocking the access with his body, and Joe did not think it would have been a good idea to step any closer to the man. He would report to the XO of the Lucky Find, just as he had been ordered to do. When he closed the hatch behind himself. Tom he was thinking, that this Captain had just told him to go tell his mother, Sophia Ryan was the XO of the huge ship, that he was a failure. He had only been fallowing orders in the ship's log, not to disturb the leadership. He had never picked up, that as a ship's officer. He had to know when to break away from orders, and make the call on what to do. He was not cut out to be in command of anything larger than a handful of people. The bad part was that, he still did not know it yet. His mother was going to have to that. She was going to have to use small words, along with several glass of wine from her dwindling supply to get it threw his thick head.

Captain Kelly watched the back of the kid leave before looking around his bridge. Someone was missing he could feel it, like an itch in the back of his brain. He was about to do a head count when, the sounds of running feet came back up the inner set of metal stars that lead from deep in the ship to the bridge. It was the assistant long ranged radio operator. When he made the turn to clear the metal stars he turn right into Captain Kelly. The speeding enlisted men was almost nose to nose with his commander in the space of a breath. His face had the look of someone who had just crawled through a doggie door and was greeted by an upset Rottweiler on the other side. He was a little stunned and took a half step back, to put some distance between him and the right hand of god. "Ah sir, the scouts that came in at o' dark 30 this morning are on their way up, now. They told me that they left their equipment near the plotting table, before they went below to grab some shut eye. They will only need a few minutes to set up a briefing for you."

They had just found the backpack in question, when two strange men entered the bridge. Then the smell hit Kelly, and the rest of the bridge crew like Thor's hammer. It was like a 100 old gym shorts and funk mixed in with good sized dose of death, and something else mixed in. It was an impress stench, if you had been trying to make it a lab or something as a crowd control agent. It also was a smell that the entire bridge crew would try to forget, hopefully before they had their hot next meal. It was coming from the two men like a wave, and it would not have surprised them if flies would have been seen flying around there heads. The Crews were just lucky, that they had not found any insects on this planet. It almost took their breath away from more than one of the bridge crew members. Kelly could tell that the scout noticed the reaction of the bridge crew, but they were pros and it would not stop them. They needed to complete this part of the tasks, so that they could get paid.

The two men got to work fast, they loaded the data they had pulled from the navigation systems from both the car and hover cycle that they had used. The electronic map table started to adjust. As the data from a ¼ mile off each side of the various paths, the two craft had taken and was displayed for everyone to see. Even the data from a third path was displayed on the high definition projection device. This third path, was the return route the two men had taken back to report the find. When it stopped moving the two men, both picked up electronic pens. They were now ready for the second part of the briefing they were going to have to do.

Rex spoke first to the gather leadership. "Sir, the both of our paths are marked on the map, because we did not plan to be working together when we set out. I was first on the scene after getting a few lucky sightings of their flying craft. He drew a circle around one hill on a low ridge that was now on the digital map for the first time. I found a field of what I think are grounded spaceships here." Rex but a red circle around the edge of the map, in the newly added area. "I set up a camp here at the base of a low ridge in the tree line, and put in a hide site here." Rex pointed to the two location, one on the back side of the hill and one at the hill's crest. There is a mud flat beyond it and they have turned it into a landing field slash home or camp. The mud flat on the other side of the hill, has a high content of salt. So nothing is growing on the very bottom flat area, or none that I could see. Maybe the mud flats was what was left from a dying sea or something along those lines. It has good drainage and the soil seems to be holding their weight of what they have put on it. Maybe there is a stone layer not far under a thinish layer of mud. I did not try to take any soil samples while I was working the area"

He gave a little nod to David who activated a small projector and started flipping through the images that Rex had taken with his digital camera. While David flipped images, Rex continued to talk. "They have 50 to 60 of what we think are space ships spread out all on the open flats. I was able to get some good shots of most of the ships from my hide site. Most looked to be one off designs or something maybe else, but very few looked closely alike to us. It took some time, but the crews seem to be human or at least humanoid." It was after a few different images of the different ships, before the first image came up of a human walking between two rows of tents then images of people entering and leave the various shanty town like housing units along the side or under the landed ships.

Rex had stopped talking until about half of the images of people and homes had been seen, before he started talking again. "I could not get a good count on how many people there are down there, but I would say that it's over 30 thousand people at a guess." Rex licked his chapped lips for a few seconds. "I would say that it has the feel of a refuge center of some kind to me. By the way, I was able to get some good images of what has been flying over us these past months. As we all know they seem to come in two basic types. The box type looks to be for carrying light cargo or small numbers of passengers. They dagger shaped ones, I would bet fill the roles as fighters of some type. They are single person craft, and are crazy maneuverable." More images came of the two craft that were called Raptors and Vipers, but that was not known by these humans.

"That was about all I could find out, from my hide site at this time." Rex stopped talking but no questions were raise, so he got ready for the hand off the second scout, just as they had worked out. "I was working my way closer to this camp, when I ran into Scout Boone. He had a boom mike complete with dish and a recorder when we made contact." Rex turned and offered his right hand, palm up to the other scout. It was a signal for the other man to take over the briefing.

David turn on his light pen, and started drawing on the table top map. "I parked my command car here, and made my way around this hill. I started recording what I could with my directional microphone. It is not the best quality recording, I was trying to see what was going on in the new comer's camp. You going to hear a lot of background noses of me trying to sneak closer in the early parts of the recording. This is where I made contact with Rex. We decided to pull back to his hide site to work out the best way to use our limited equipment. From here on we were teamed up watching the ground ships and local population."

After making on the plotting table some more. David hit the play button on his recording system, and it started playing back the gibberish it had recorded. "We were able to get four days and some extra hours of audio recorded. Between me and Rex, we know more than a few different languages between us. Even with that, could not make heads or tails of what they are saying." He put both of his fists on the edge of the Plotting table and leaned a little forward. "Do any of you all know of anyone, who might be able to figure out what they are saying?" David was being a little aggressive but he wanted all of his hard work to pay off, but they it turned out to be viewed as useless. It was going to crush his ego.

Kelly was looked at the images auto-replying again, as the gibberish was playing in the back ground. It was a lot of information to take and process, in a very short amount of time. He had been expecting that when these strangers were first found, it would just be a grid location on a map. Then it would have been a few weeks, before any new information came in. This was like drinking out of a fire hose, and Kelly know he was missing some important facts. He just did not have enough information to ask the right questions, yet. That did not mean that he did not have a few dozen questions ready to launch right that second. "Rex you have dealt with slavers before. Did you see anything that might say that this is what they are?"

Rex was thinking and was rolling his lower lip over his upper one. He was going back in his mind about everything he had seen in his life that might help answer the Captain. "Sir, I don't think so. I mean, they could be hiding cages, or slave pens, and other stuff inside the ships or off planet for that matter." He was thinking some more but he was mentally moving to one side of the problem. "IF they are human? Then I would say that they are not slavers. They are acting more like refuges with the way they are living. I can't tell you why? It is just a feeling, that I have sir." Rex was eye locked on Captain Kelly, but then looked at the other two leaders.

"BEEP!" Sounded from the back of the metal walled room. No one reacted to the electronic sound from the meeting going on around the data projecting table. Or for that matter the rest of the crew that manned the ship's command center.

David was thinking also, he did not know if he should say something or not? He took a slight breath, and jumped into the conversation with both feet. "Sir I have not dealt with pirates while working with you, but I have been scouting and hunted there kind long before I joined your crew. I have gone against both human and D-Bees slavers types for a few years." David was down playing the number of years he had been hunting pirates. He had killed his first one when he was all of ten years old. "These people are living in shelters, which look like they were made from whatever they have on hand. They look like shanties to me and not real homes. From what I have found, Slavers like to live well, and to show that high living off to other slavers. I don't see anything like that here. This looks to be a more of the seat of your paint operation. They might have been us, if you all had not made sure we had a plan before we got off of the ships." David stopped talking and waited to see if he had over stepped the boundaries of this meeting.

An electronic "BEEP! BEEP!" From the back of the room again and again there was no reaction from the meeting or the bridge staff.

Bob was looking at the data table, and trying to think. But the smell radiating off the two men, was not letting that happen as much as it should. He decided to take care of that for his nose, as well as for his brain's benefit. "Why don't you boys go clean up, and get some more rest." Kelly waved the Purser over to the plotting table, because he had been thinking the same thing. It was just that Bob had beaten him to the punch. Maybe the funk was getting to him also thought Bob.

Now that the Purser was next to Kelly, he took over talking. "Why don't you show these men to the hydroponics bay? They can use all the hot water they want, is that clear? Also put them in the Guest Cabin, after they have cleaned up." He turned to look at the two scouts full on. "We may need to get you later, for some more detail. So please don't run off without checking in here." What he had not said, but had been thinking. Was that the water would probably make great fertilizer, when they were done cleaning themselves in it. That would be up the Hydroponics support team to figure out, after they were done using the water.

The thought of setting in a huge tub filled to the top without worrying about the rationed, hot water on the cold damp planet was amazing. Both of the men were ready to start shedding cloths, right then and there. They both wanted to start running to the hold that held the next best thing to heaven, which they would be able to grasp. Well as close to Heaven, that was on this side of the living and breathing world. They did not notice Captain Kelly hold their guide back for a few seconds. They also did not hear, when the Captain told him to take all of their cloths and turn into the cleaners. The Pursuer was thinking that they might need to be listed as possible bio-hazard material, to be on the safe side. Captain Kelly also said that the two scouts were to be fitted with cloths form the ships limited stores, while there field cloths were taken care of.

When the two scouts had left the enclosed bridge, one of the staff members, without orders, activated the massive fans that where in place to suck all the air out of the Bridge. They were there, if the bridge had somehow been contaminated by something nasty. In a since the air had been contaminated, just by at least sweat and human funk. In a few minutes the smell had dissipated from the room. At least to a point, where the nose hairs were not trying to crawl out of their heads and run into another room. Not wanting to hurt their mouths, as well as lungs the leaders were not talking. It gave the Triumvirate some time to look at the updated facts, and to think about what they had just found out about there the world they had been calling home. They studied the new information on the plotting table, but it was going to take some work to figure out the next set of moves. Much less a dozen back up moves, just in case one started to look like it might go bad and might cost their peoples blood.

Again an electronic "BEEP!" sounded out. Coming from the back of the room, at the same volume and tone as the last ones. And again there was not a response from the now smaller command meeting and bridge staff.

Captain Kelly was the first one to break the silence when he pointed to the ship's Comm's station. "I want the Road Master here as fast as he can get here." The Road Master was the person in charge of expanding, maintaining, and otherwise manages the growing network of trails. It did not matter if they were large or small, as well as the all of the fords that they had put in. They helped to speed up crossing of some of the rivers in their way. So far they only had to in have one full-fledged Ferry location built and maintained. That had been a great help moving non-hover transport or flying vehicles over a deep river, wide, and fast moving river. It would have taken days if not weeks to go around that obstacle.

Rob and Max looked at the other man in their small group. They had worked together long enough to be able to convey, with a look that they would like to know what was going on in his head. Kelly took the look and gave them verbally some of what they were wanting. "I think we need to focus all of our road workers expanding a single route, focused towards the new comers. I think we will have to wait on some on the routes going to the new resources areas that we have found, for now. I want to ask him what he thinks is the best way to skin this cat will be."

Max was puzzled by what he was seeing going on around him and after Kelly had made his statement. Max fired both barrels of questions. "We don't know anything about them yet. Why don't we just wait for them to leave this planet again, or for the Rift to show back up? Then get out of this place, just like how we got here in the first place. I don't think we should be divert any of our trail building, just yet. If this breaks wrong or even not just perfectly right. We are going to need some of those ores, and we will need them very badly."

Kelly and Bob looked at the other man, and knew this was going to be touchy. "Max that Rift we crossed, was deep underwater. We have exactly five transports between our two ships. That can carry more than one person that deep underwater. How many trips do you think it would take to get everyone threw the Rift, and the 50 to 100 miles to the coast line on the other side of the blasted thing? That is, if it's in the same place on the same Earth we left." Kelly raised his hand to stop the other man from interrupting him now that he was on a roll. "Now we could load everyone back up on our two large ships. Then when we got out to the local Rift area. Then we could blow the bottoms out of our ships and try to hit the Rift on the way down the water column. Now that leaves a little problem, of when we get to the other side. We are in sinking ships, with 50 to 100 miles of wide open ocean between us and land. And that is about the best case scenario, we have been able to come up with."

Kelly took another breath and was still holding eye contact with the other man. "Max your right we don't know much about this group, yet. We don't even know, if they are truly human are not, but what if they are? They have almost 100 SPACSHIPS that we have seen! We have a very small gene pool here, and no one knows if it's deep enough for use to survive here or not. I have been working on a plan, that if/when the dimensional Rift comes back. I was thinking that we would send one of the larger attack submarines out and try to contact GWS. With the Lucky Find now proven to still be intact, they would move heaven and Earth to get her back. That is, if the rift stays long enough for that to happen. Now IF we can make friends with these people. Maybe just maybe, we can get a ride off this mud ball and back home. I agree with you on the whole thing about not knowing anything about them, and I want to be ready for any way it might break. We might need to jump to protect our people first and foremost. I just think that waiting for them to leave, seems like a bad play. Even if they don't want to lift us off this place, right now. They have a lot of real Space ships. They must be from a very high tech civilization, maybe they can get word back to our home and families that were are alive at least. That won't help us get home, but at least our families know we are alive and trying to get back home to them."

Max was holding onto a projecting table and he was not saying anything to the two other men. He was just blinking and looking back and forth between the other two men. All of the blood, looked like it had drained from his face in one second flat. Now Bob stepped in, so that Kelly would not viewed as the bad guy or the heavy handed on him. "Max, this is one of the reason we think three people leading us, is as important to the group as a whole. Kelly and I cannot make this type big of a decision, like who we can trust. Not without all three of use agreeing, but you have to ask yourself some questions. So that you can vote, as best you think is best for our people." Bob stopped talking and finally he brain caught up to this mouth and he played a hunch. "Kelly and I have talked about this a few times in the past year. I know I put it in the minutes of our meetings, when you were not able to make it." Bob stopped talking and from the look on Max's face was not tracking fully what was being said to him. "Here it is again in a nut shell. If you don't agree with us in starting meeting and/or starting relation with them or anyone else. Then by the rules we set up, we will not. But you will have to defend that action to the people as a group. I don't think claiming fear is going to cut it, but we will still obey the laws. I was told a long time ago, that a society that does not enforce at equal level the laws. Then it is not a society, it is a travesty."

"BEEP!" Came from the back of the room again. It was at the same level of electronic sound as before. Again there was not a response from the now smaller command meeting that would show any signs of hearing it.

Max turned a little red around his ears and then relented. His shoulders hunched over some then looked at Bob, like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "Sometimes I don't read all the way through your notes, on the meetings I missed. I trust you guys. Were all friends, aren't we?" He was now looking very pole axed. They were just lucky that the tone and voice volume, were low so that this meeting did not carry to the rest of the on duty bridge crew. It would not take long for a statement like that to make the rounds around the ship and quickly off of it. Max would have lost the confidence of the people how had kept electing him to this office.

Kelly could not believe what he was hearing from the only nonmilitary bent person on the ship. Kelly gave a slight shake of his head in disbelief. "Look Max, you can trust us. And yes, we're friends but you have to verify things in case we make any misstates. You have to represent the people, which vote and re-voted you into this office you hold. If you're not going to look out for them, as the job entails? You might want to let them know about it, and then the people can find someone who will look out for them. It's your job Max, and you have agreed to do that. On the very first day you were in office, we told you, that we did not want just a yes man to rubber stamp our decisions." Kelly quickly looked around the room to make sure no one had been in ear shot of them.

Before they could talk any more in private, one man and one woman entered the Revenge's Bridge from below decks up the same stairs that the scouts had done down. They were the Road Master and Wall Masters for the Safe Harbor Bay village. They were pointed to the Plotting table for the meeting by the nearest crew-member. Kelly was glad the Wall Master was there, because he had planned to track her down later to see how that engineer project was going. He wanted to get an update, on her progress on the wall upgrading the three leaders had approved. Bob took a few minutes, and explained the updates on the Plotting table and the facts. At least as they knew them to the two new comers to the ships command center. It was a thunder stuck moment for the new comers, Kelly and Bob had to fight a smile down. It would not take long word to leak out about what had been found. The trio was going to enjoy as many of the looks as they could get before the surprise wore off.

Kelly was ready to pitch his idea and see if it made sense to everyone else around the table or not. "What I would like to do is focus on expanding one trail closer to this camp. You can pull from all of the other trails to focus on this one expansion." He pointed to one of the closest trail marked on the map that was supposed to be the closest trail to that mud field according to the data down loaded. "I would like to have a trail head and base camp built at the end the active trail. I think we should stop, maybe around 200 or 300 miles from this landing area." He drew a circle were the strangers had set up there little village, to mark the area. "What do you think Road Master? Does this make sense or am I crazy as my two partners think I am?"

The Road Master was looking at the table and it's mass of lines spider webbing across the map. "Sir I can, but that might not be the best route for the trail to take." He pulled a small data chip out of his shirt pocket. Normally all of the scouts report to him first. It have made perfect since that he would have a more updated map than the command table on the ships. The map was updated twice a day and had been updated just before the Captain had come on duty. It should not have been that much of a change after only a couple of hours.

After the electronic machine posted the updated data on the network of trails everyone was looking at and studying the changes. One of the trails was a lot farther along than had been on display before a few seconds ago. The Road Master Glyndwr Michael pointed to one area of the electronic map. "We are closer by about 100 miles on this trail over here, if this is to scale. We could put a camp here." Glyndwr pointed to an area near a ridge line and creek bed. "I would still need about 1500 miles of new routes, which would need to be put in place. If we were back home, that would be flat impossible to do for us and maybe even the CS engineers. I assume that we want to keep this low profile, just in case they turn out to not be too happy to see us?" The Road Master looked around the table but he could not read the faces. "Is that what you want me to do?" He wanted as close to ironclad orders as he could get, in case he had to cover his fourth point of contact later. He was a very cautious man by nature.

Each of the three men gave a nod in approval of the action. Then Kelly added to the nonverbal communication. "I would like to make this project as a need to be expedited project." Expedited label would mean that all other road building or improvements would be halted. This would put the maxim amount of manpower and resources to a given topic until it was done or the trio changed their minds. The Road Master would even be able to draw on the limited amount of emergency supplies that they had left. It was only the third time that an "Expedite" title been given out, since they had come to his world. It was not something that was taken or given lightly.

Each the other two men nodded in agreement to Kelly statement, but they did not look that happy about it. The Road Master was also not that happy about this modification. That was because it would put his entire carefully planned out schedules, right in the crapper. And they would not even give him a courtesy flush or light a match to cover the stink. Glyndwr did not know if the leadership had a lot of enthusiasms for this project are not. He would do as he had been asked, until he completed the mission, or they changed their minds again. That had been known to happen before as new information flooded into the settlement. "Okay, I will get on it Gentlemen." With a lemon look on his face he looked around, and then stepped back from the table with the digital map displayed on it. "Please excuse me, I have a lot of people to get moving to the new locations." He did not stick around the bridge to see the smiles as he left the brains of the ship in his dust.

An electronic "BEEP BEEP!" Came again from the back of the room. By now it was being noticed, by some of the bridge crew. But none of them could identify where it was coming from, and what system it might be. It now was at the level of annoyance to some of the crew, but that was about it for now. Everyone else had a lot of other things to do, to but much effort into just an annoyance.

With the Road Master exited the command center Max turned, and looked at the women that was in charge of the defensive fortification of the Settlement. She was an engineer by training. Originally she had been hired to go to the GWS colony, to review and improve the defenses of that growing town and base. She now was doing the same thing, but just on a much smaller scale. "Nancy, I know you were planning on updating us next week on the status of the wall. Can you just tell us now about the statues might be? If these new groups turns out not to be friendly. We may need the upgraded defenses a lot sooner than we planned or feared that we would." The upgraded Wall had just been a "what if" and cover the bases. Now it was look like it might have a needed after all. Other than a way to employ a few hundred people with needed to be done work.

She had been on her way over, when she had ran into the Road Master to update them. So she was not exactly being caught flat footed for the requested information update. "We have completed the upgrading on each of the three gates, at each of the five land ward entrances. The two gates on near the water have almost completing upgrading, but we are not done or even tested yet. The reinforced wall behind the wooden palisade near all of the gates, have been complete out to around 30 feet from each side of a gate access point. All of the underground footers are done along and behind the whole wooden wall. We will not have to worry about undermining down to 15 feet, and it's heavy enough to support the planned wall. It will even hold up when we have to raise it from current planned eight feet tall of the gates, up to fifteen feet above ground level. I have about 1/3rd of the length of the wall up to three feet above ground level. I also have about half of the wall length being only about foot above the dried footers. What I was coming over here to let you all know, is that the last high damage concrete gate. The one at the end of the dock, is almost completed and it should be finish testing in a few days to a week. That is unless we have major issues, which we have not had on the other gates." She was not going to touch on the point, that she might be losing man power. Now that the Road Master had the right to pull whoever and whatever he felt that he needed to complete his now modified tasks, under his command. She did not have to say that this might be now be delayed, due to lack of manpower unless they stepped in.

Wall Master Nancy Wake stopped talking, and waited for the three men to say something to her. She was over a week ahead of schedule, and she had not needed to pay overtime or any other extras to keep under the deadline she had been given. She just had been able to manage the project that well, she was called the Wall Master for more than one reason.

Bob blinked and he was very surprised by what this woman had said. There was little doubt that she was faking the report, she had no reason to. "That was a lot of work to get done in such a short amount of time Wall Master." Bob shot both Kelly and Max a quick look of confusion. "I know that you had to redo a lot of the original work that had been done on the wall." Bob had a huge frown on his face. "Because of those issues with the prior Wall Master, who had talked up his skill sets that he did not have in reality." This was a sore sport for Bob, still after all of these months. A lot of work had been done and paid for. Then someone showed up out of the blue, telling them that it was all wrong. Nancy Wake had just given birth to a baby, and had not been moving around for the last two months. The difficult pregnancy had not been keeping her uninformed on what was going on around the village. When the last Wall Master had challenged her, well she then proved that Bob's choice to run the projects had been the wrong one. The challenge had been very public, and so had the proving that she was right. It had only taken her about ten minutes to do the proving.

Bob knew that what he was about to say was not going to make Max any more comfortable. Max had a laser like focused on the budget or bottom line on what something was going to cost. He did not like putting out any more rescores than he felt they absolutely had to. "If the new group does not turn out to be friendly, it would be nice to have a better defensive wall. Would it help speed thing along. If we offered an additional E-clip charge per day as an incentive bonus for workers on the wall per day? Also if we are attacked, how much time would you need to get some kind of weapons mounted on the walls?" Bob could see her eyes brows shoot up into her hairline and felt he needed to finish his question. "Now I'm not talking about putting them in now, but as a short notice thing. If we only had a day or so of notice."

The Wall Master made a face, that was a good offer but it would cause some issues in other areas if she was not careful. "I could use the additional hands don't get me wrong, but I need skilled labor, and not just some strong backs. Can I make up a graduated pay scale, with the most useful skilled getting the paper scripted one E-Clip and lower skills getting less additional per day? I also would like permission to use the wrecked cargo truck. I think we can turn the cargo bay area into a trailer. That will increase our ability to move more raw materials around faster, and basically speed up the overall project. As to the weapons mounts. The way we are putting wall together, their holes in the top most exposed layer. I think they are a little bigger around than the shaft on the pintle mounts you had made for the off-road ATV's. If we are attacked, all they would need to do slide in the weapon pintle into the wall." The hover cargo truck she was talking about had been crushed when a wind storm had blown a huge tree onto it one night.

Max looked up from the display map, he had decided to try not to know what was going on between Bob and Nancy. All of that changed when his brain picked up on that last bit about the cargo trailers. "How many trailers can you use Wall Master? Does it matter if it's a hover or wheeled?" When all he received in replay were blank looks he went into more detail. "I know a guy in town. He has been "working" on different projects on his own, but he has not had much interest in them from the rest of the Settlement. I think he has five or six wood sided cargo trailers. He has been working on them for a while now, but he has not anyone that wanted to "rent" them out yet." Now when the Wall Master looked back at Max, she had a huge smile on her face. She was thinking about all the work she could get done with that number of trailers. Max wanted to stop her before she got her hopes raised to high, and they came crashing down around her ears. "Don't get your hopes up Wall Master. Last time I checked, none of them around his house were working yet. I don't know how long it will take to get any of them read to carry a useful load." He looked at the other two men and raised one eyebrow. "It will not be cheap by any means. The family is not known for giving up something without charging through the nose for it. And I mean they like squeezing every cent out of a deal that they can, and maybe a little bit more. I would swear that it's almost like it's some kind of a game for them." Max was shaking his head from side to side as he finished.

Kelly was surprised, that he had no idea that someone might be trying to make trailers in the Settlement until right that second. Kelly felt it was his time for him to weigh in on the matter. "We can offer to rent the trailers. It they need parts; we can draw them from one of the supply warehouses to help them out. I would like it better, if we can use only lowest tech things that they can. That way we can replace them, without having a full tech base rather than pulling parts we can't replace." Kelly stopped talking and sort of tilted his head to one side and an evil grin turned up the corners of his mouth. "Do you think we can use those parts to get a discount on any of the rental fees?" He smiled at Max with a sly and knowing smile. "If you want, we can send Kittinger over to do the negotiating for us." Joe had a very well developed reputation for being a hard man in negotiating, since coming through the Rift. He played the game of good cop bad cop very well, almost like he had been born to it.

An electronic "BEEP! BEEP!" sounded again from the back of the room again. And again there still were not any visible reaction from the meeting area.

Max straightens up to his full height, his shoulders went back, and his chest went out. If he could only have sucked in his gut a little he would have looked impressive. "I think I can cover it. I like playing the good guy when I can. If I can't work something out, then we can always bring out a bigger hammer. I just think later, would be better." He pointed to the Revenge's XO across the bridge and let a smile cross his face to take any sting out of his voice. He let it fall again to change the subject. "But can someone tell me, what that Beeping sound is. It's driving me nuts already."

The two other men just looked back at the only non-sailor of the group, like he had finally gone around the bend. Going crazy was a very real problem, and more than one person had to be held. Until they were not a threat to themselves or more importantly to others in the small group. They were about to say something and a sound stopped them from some embarrassment.

BEEP! Came from the back of the room in an electronic medium pitch. This time many heads started looking for the source of the sound.

The other two men had spent decades on the bridges of a lot of different ships. The back ground noise of the computers and systems was something they were just use to, but when Max said something. It brought the sound to their fore-brain, which Max was talking about when it went off again. "I don't know Max. WHAT IS MAKING THAT SOUND! On my bridge?" Boomed Kelly to his crew. It was like he kicked a hornet's nest as people started moving around the bridge to try to answer the Captains request.

The bridge crews jumped to the command. It only took a few seconds before the sound was identified by one of the bridge crew-members. "Sir, I found it." Joann was pointing to a rough weather mounted portable computer, on a back console that was not being used. It had not been used for years and the person that had used it, had not even been on the ship when it was Rifted to this world. About the only thing it had been used for lately is as coffee cup holder.

A small crowd gathered around one of the secondary communication stations. The woman running the main station a few meters away was already looking at a boxy laptop computer. "Sir, it's a Triax Merchant Translation Computer." The tech was speed reading a user's guide attached to one side of the device as fast as she could. "According to this, it translates any unknown language into a list of common languages. It's also says the more it can it picks up on its built in microphone, the faster it can make a translations package. The package is also transferable to most other computer systems and they list them." Joann was flipping through the thin booklet and her face was in a deep frown, but it was not anger that was causing it and under her breath she mumbled. "Now what in the Hells is a Translation Package?" She asked herself, and kept looking through the thin booklet.

BEEP! And this time there was a flash of light on the screen of the weather mounted thick lap top computer.

Kelly was looking around bridge and made a face, and looked at the highlighted word on the computer screen. "It must be picking up on the recording that David and Rex brought back, and is trying to work a translation of some kind on it." He looked closely, and was not sure he was reading it correctly. He shot a glance over to Joann who was still deep into the operation pamphlet and not looking at the screen. "Am I ready this right? It has found over 20 different words. All based in Latin or Greek from what it was picking up." The tone was very disbelieving, but it was the only thing he could think of.

BEEP! Again the sound and brief and low flash of light from the screen that highlighted what might have been a word.

"Make that, 22 different words in a base of Latin or Greek." Kelly looked over to Joe, who was only about a step behind him around the station. "I want someone watching this till that recording is done. Gentlemen, maybe we should go to my office and finish the meeting." Kelly addressed the other two men and pointed toward the metal stairs in the middle of the room. They slowly started making their way to that exit, but before they started down the stairs. "If everyone is agreeable. I say that the Wall Master can run with her manpower plan, and we will try to get her a few cargo trailers to help her. XO, please let us know when this has completed its run of data. Maybe we can get someone trained how to use this thing properly." Kelly stopped his slow walk and turned to find the woman he was thinking about. "Joann can you see if there is any way to just dump the recording chip into the machine, instead of just playing it out loud for the next four days?" He was pointing at the laptop device. Joann's eyes went huge thinking about having to listen to a strange voice speaking an unknown language for the next four days was not an enjoyable thought.

The three leaders spent the rest of morning working on plans, now that they had more information about the New Comers. The three were quickly frustrated, because they did not know more but it was a start. And as they say, a marathon starts but with a single step. They had to stop at lunch to get some food to fill their rumbling stomachs. They all had skipped the morning meal due to the issues on the bridge earlier. They did not eat this meal on the ship, this time in the ship's mess hall. They chose to eat out, so that they could also to walk through the Settlement. This allowed them to let everyone know that the rumor was true. They had found the New Comers, and they did seem to have space ships of some kind with them. While they were eating, during one of the few lulls between interruptions, they had another project pop up for the Trio to work on.

They decided to start looking into building underground bomb and evacuation shelters. It would be to protect the civilians that were not on call to defend the wall if attacked. The Wall Master had a master plan of what she wanted to do for the defenses broken out into different phases. That is after the wall was to the Phase One level or the height that still hidden behind the covering wooden outer wall. A message was sent to her to dust off those plans and review them when she got the time. They wanted each part of the upgrades brought before them for approval. This was in case it might interfere with other work that the settlement might need. When they got back to the meeting room on the Revenge, they had a message waiting on them. It said that Rex and David would like to head back out to the landing field in two days. The Three passed along back to them that they would like them to go back out, and that they would make arrangements to get them as close as they could. It was so that the two scouts could get more rest, before they started their mission again. Before the end of the day, funds were transferred to the private banking accounts of the two scouts and a recite was sent to them. Now the scout would have more funds available for their use, as they saw fit.

As it turned out the scouts did not get the two days' of rest that they had wanted. It they wanted to catch a free ride for a good bit of the trip? They would have to leave the next day at noon or wait for almost a week for another one to be arranged. When they were told, the messenger had to repeat that the ride was free of charge, which was not given out to just everyone. Rex was okay about going out again, even if it was early. David was less so, but in the end decided that he could rest on the way out after all. They took up the offer of ride out of the village about an hour after being told about it. They completed their packing and thanks to the cleaning department. The pair had a nice and clean set of cloths and equipment ready to go out into the cold mud again. They were meeting their "cargo" truck about 30 minutes, before it was scheduled to roll out the Number 3 gates. It was going to be a dry, warm, if not as "nice"" of a ride out this time. David's car and Rex's cycle were packed down by the loading crew into the cargo bay with ease. By the time the truck was rolling out the last gate of the Settlement, both men were snoring loudly in the back rumble seats of the truck. They were banking sleep, or still trying to catch up on sleep from what they had missed the last week or so. On the frantic run from that field all the way back to the great ships.

The pair of scouts in the cargo truck reached the road camp just under three full days later. The time it took to cover the distance was faster come out. Even though the tuck the scouts were packed into, had a lower top end speed. It was able to say on "a road" for longer than they had been able to. It was able to cover the distance very quickly and the two scouts could catch up on "sleep" and getting and staying warm again. When they got to the base camp, the two were told that three other scouts were already making their way to the New Comers' field. That did not make them happy, but now the location of the New Comers was public knowledge. It was their discovery, and they felt like they should be the ones to do all of the scouting. Not some new comers or Johnny come lately to the find. Then again they had sold the information for a nice but of change to the leadership.

They spent the next two days moving through the wet woods in their hover transports, trying to sneak up to were Rex had parked his cycle last time. But this time they had to make sure to hid David's a lot bigger command car as well as the smaller easier to hid hover cycle. At least this time they were able to set up bigger camp near the vehicles that would act as their "living area". It was farther away from the cold camp had been, and take them longer to go between the hide site and it. But it would let them be more comfortable when they were off shift. They then scouted the area around where they had camouflage their rides and temporary home on the last trip. It was to see, if they could find any sign that someone had been in this area sense Rex and David had been there the last. With all the rain falling on this planet, it made finding foot prints pretty much out of the question. But a set of foot prints were not the only thing they were looking for in the area. When a person was moving through the woods, they tended to leave other signs that they had been in the area. They only found a few out of places rocks or bent limbs, but nothing that would raise alarm bells to them. The imperfections were slight and might have been done my one of the other scouts that were now working in the local area. What they did not do, was radio back to the slowly closing base camp or to anyone else. The pair did not want these new comers knowing that someone was this close to them. The scouts knew it was too easy to pick up on a stray radio signals, with some high tech gear and a good ear. If you had the ability to fly in space, then you were probably had access to some very high tech equipment in the minds of these two scouts. It just made since to them, but they had no facts to back up it up. That did not stop them from acting that way. They were acting under the "better to be safe than sorry" set of rules that had kept them alive for years.

They spent the rest of the afternoon's dim light; unpacking things they would want to take to work on the task that needed to be done. They also pulled out the items to make the new hide site, which they would need on the coming mission. When the sun has just starting to set and they had rested some more, they loaded up some of the kit on their backs. The two scouts slowly and stealthy made it to the low hill, between them and the humans on the other side. They went up to about the same area that Rex had set up his hide site before. It was not exactly in the same spot, because that would have been bad field craft to do such a thing. And these men did not do bad field craft, after so many years of practice. They had found out that it was a quick way to catch a case of the deads. They quickly put up the high tech cover that would protect them from most known sensors, without making a sound. They were moving very slowly, when they were exposed to viewing by the people living on the mud flats below. The human eye was drawn to any sort of movement, especially out of the corner of their eyes at night.

When the hide site was complete they took up position under its cover out of the rain. For now they each took turns watching through the night vision goggles. While the other was using an upgraded microphone system to record any sounds. When they started to relaxes from the day's business they flipped a coin for the rest of the shifts. That was so while one scout was up, the other would get some sleep at least. They both had long days, so it was two hours on and then two hours off, until they could get rested up. It was a quiet night overlooking the small city below them. When the sun rose the next day they stayed in the hide site on the little hill. They were eating a cold meal and writing down notes form the night before, while it was still fresh in their minds. It was not like they could flip open a computer with a light screen and take the notes. The glow of a computer screen could be seen a lot farther than a city person might think. By the time that the sun was past its highest point in the sky, they were more or less rested from the trip out of this hiding spot.

They were quickly settling into a rhythm, as they watched the refuges. The two scouts were getting more of the refuge feeling, about the run down camp below them. They also used the time to get to know each outer a little better. If they had trusted each other better, they might have done a one in the hide site, and one in the cold camp. They could have done this mission with a rotation of 12 hours on duty and 12 full hours off task. It was just that they did not know each other that well, yet. When the sun started to rise on the second day of the overlook, they started to use a long telephoto lens. It was not to peak at the camp below, but to look at the geography of the area around it. It was to see if there might be a better or just different over watch location, than the one they had been using.

That evening the pair went back down the hill, to the coldish camp, by where they had hidden their transportation. The little field heater was turned on, to dry out the insides of the camping site, while they relaxed. This was how they spent the next few rotations of spying. They would spend two days watching, then one day off relaxing. They only time that they had a problem, was when they saw a group of six or eight people gathered by a wheeled cargo truck in the mud field below. They went on high alert when that truck and personnel left the field they had been watching. It had drove into the nearby woods on the other side of the camp from the hide site. It turned out that it was only a wood cutting detail, but it did put the scouts on edge for a few hours. Until the group returned to the same location in the refugee camp. The second time it happened, they were not that concerned by the movement of the people and truck. That was because the area they were cutting the trees down, was still some distance from their cold camp. The other scouts would just have to be good enough, not too been seen by this small wood cutting detail when they were out.

They has just settled in to start their fourth rotation, and thinking that they only had one more rotation to do. Then they would make the long trip back to the trail head, and see how close the base camp had gotten to the New Comers, since they had left it the week before. While they were both daydreaming about warm beds and hot food they still were on the job at hand. That is when things started to happen, that would make them wish they were board and just watching the camp from the little hill on its side.


	9. Chapter 9 The Hammer falls (chap 5a)

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Chapter 5a The Hammer falls**

 **New Caprica,**

 **660 Days after the Fall of the Colonies**

 **3 years 1 month 20 days AT**

The two scouts were watching the field below the hide site they had built together. When the group of people below them started to run and become very excited, and not in a good way. The scouts had no idea what was going on at first. That is until someone pointed up into the sky, while they were talking to someone else in the camp. The two scouts looked up also in the general direction of the pointing arm. They saw several large explosions on display before their eyes. Then large blue and white circles were visible high in the sky over their heads. Rex was taking as many images as he could, to compare the two different types of explosions they were seeing. They were both focused looking up into the sky, that they lost awareness of what was going on around them.

This was when the first crescent shaped plane over flew their hide, at an extremely high rate of speed. The new craft was not like anything that they had seen before. What had these two men had seen flying before? Well that was a very long list of different types of flying equipment, which they had seen in their lives. Then they were soon over flow again, but this time it was not by one flying craft. It was wave after wave of what seemed like hundreds of the same type of the little craft darkening the sky. Rex used his camera and took as many images as they could, as fast as he could. It was not long before he was distracted by a second type of craft over flew them. They were in a formation of only few dozen or so, moving a lot slower than the crescent shaped ones were doing. This new craft were about twice as large as the box shaped ones, the pair had been seeing landing and taking off again. It did not look anything like the fat arrow shaped craft. This new craft had two horn protrusions coming out the front with what looked like six small cannons in a single group mounted forward to defend it from attack. They came in low and slow over their heads. And then the whole group set down on the mud flats, at the base of hill that the hide site was on top of. The location were these strange new craft had landed on, was almost exactly where Rex had meet up with David that one night. Sweat was now pouring off the foreheads of both men in sheets, but still they took pictures and recorder everything they could.

This landing now had the Rex's undivided attention, when the hatch opened on the front of the craft near what looked like a metal covered head fixed mounted on the bow. He was already using his camera to take in as much information and images as it could. He pushed a button to turn image taker into a video collector. It would use up a lot more memory space, but he was thinking that this was so going to be worth it later. He was able to get a prefect shots of the mass of metal men that exited two of the large landing craft. They reminded Rex of the old style Coalition State Skeletalbots, but without the horror factor built into the sleeker looking machines. Skeletalbots as their name implied looked like walking black painted metal bone that looked like a moving complete human skeleton. And it also came with various hand carried weapons to wonder the country side killing whatever it had been programed to do. What they were seeing below them, where a lot sleeker looking and a flat or dull chrome finished. It was an army of metal men, and each of the metal groups was led by one human only. David touched Rex's shoulder to get the other scout to look at him.

With Rex still holding the camera taking videos, when he looked at David to see what was so important. That was when David pointed that the group next to the one Rex was looking at. It had a twin of the women that was leading the group of metal men Rex had been imaging. Rex nodded his head in agreement, and with a push of a button stopped taking videos and took an image of the other women. Then he used the extended lens to take images of each of the human leaders in turn. An army of what seemed like thousands marched into the camp lead by only seven different looking humans. Rex had counted 49 human looking bipeds in total, but they were only seven different humans that he could take images of. That was too strange to be normal, or natural for that matter. Rex had seen twins a few times and even triplets once, but he had never heard of seven identical babies born at once. What were the odds that it would happen seven times and they all were be leading an army of metal clad things? Rex's skin started to craw and chill went down his spine. He got that feeling that someone had just walked over his grave, and then backed over it with a tank. Both scouts were focused on taking in as much of the scenes as they could. So Rex almost jumped when David said something in a very low voice only two feet away from his left ear.

"That is a lot of combat cyborgs moving around down there, don't you think Rex?" The other scout whispered in the ear of Rex as low as he could. David's voice had a bit of shake in it, to his own ears and he was okay with that. He was a scout, not a line infantry or suit pilot. He knew he was heavily out gunned, and this was not his type of combat that he would like to fight.

"David, get the other field glasses. They are in my rucksack on the left hand side." Then Rex gave a slight negative head shake and without taking his eyes off of what was going on. He gave his own opinion of what he was seeing. "I don't think they are full conversion cyborgs. They look to small to me, something like six feet tall, maybe. Why would you make them that small, and lose all that firepower and other advantages. I think they are more like the old style Skeletalbots the CS Military uses back home for hunter-killer groups." He stopped talking for a second. He watched as the hands on one of the metal monsters, went from long talon like cutting claws and folded back to reveal automatic projectile weapons of some kind built into the lower arm.

The metal machine, known as a Centurion, then fired into a group of humans that had a few small hand guns for defense that Rex could see. The weapons fire cut into the group, and the rapid fire turned the group of men and women into leaking hole filled meat falling to ground. Rex was able to get the whole event on his camera if full HD colored video, and not void his stomach at the same time. While he was scanning, his eyes found another weapon being used on the human looking occupants of the shanty down. It looked like a light machine guns, in the hands of the metal men like beings. It was even leaving a trail of what looked like spent shell casing. As it was fired into shanty along either side of the muddy path way between two grounded spaceships. The oversized rifle looked to have more stopping power than the smaller looking built in weapons. Rex saw it punched through a metal shipping container that the small integral arm mounted weapons had not been able to do. The arm mounted weapons did not seem to be able to take care of the thin metal wall, even with a few lines to show the bullet strikes. One of the human leaders' wave a hand, and the heavier weapon was brought up for some unknown reason. It did not seem like it was a defensive point, or even that they were taking much if any incoming fire from it before it was ripped into metal confetti by the new weapon. David and Rex spent the rest of the day and into the night making notes and taking images of what was happening to the camp below them.

When it looked like all the movement within the camp had stopped, except for what looked like roving patrols of walking metal men. The pair of hiding scouts had not kept an eye on the time during this day's events. It was not because they did not want to chance the light spilling out of their hide site. They had just been to side-tracked watching the events as they unfolded unexpectedly below them. Rex did a quick check on his built in clock, it was well past the final meal of the day, and the sun reflected light off the clouds was almost completely gone from sight. Rex gave a head nod to the rear of the little hide in the directions of their cold camp. David nodded to say that he also thought it was a good idea to leave this area. They had a lot of information that needed to be passed along to the leaders back at the Settlement. Things just got un-boring real quick, and a lot of blood had been released today. They could see groups of four metal walking machines wonder around the camp. The pair did not know how long it would take for them to make out to this point, and they did not want to find out just know.

The two men used the night glowing sky and there night vision goggles, to repack everything they brought up the hill. They were working as fast as they could but the main driver was not be seen, heard, or otherwise found out by the any unwanted eyes. The next to last thing to go into a pack had been there outer covering screen, and the poles they had made to support it. When it was all packed up and the load, the pair of scouts moved down some of the way down the revers slope. The two men made sure that no, or at least very little sign of occupation was left behind before they were to move along again. They moved the packs out of the way, then they tried to fix the area also so that it would be very hard to tell that anyone had been hiding or moving through the area. They could not do the job to their normally very high standard, due to the lack of natural light. They were pros, so even it was not perfect. It was better than most could have done, without having to worry about being spotted and in full daylight. When they had completed that task. All that was left to do was put the heavy packs on their backs, and start walking downhill in the right direction. It would sound simple, but the backs weighed in at almost a hundred pounds each. With the metal monsters behind them, they had to have weapons drawn and ready to use at all times. As they make their way back to the cold camp as quietly and stealthily as possible. The pair would sweat out about ten pounds of body weight on the short walk in the cold night air.

It took them some time to find the cold camp even with the advantage of the night vision systems they had access to. They had set up the little camp, so that it would be hard to find by anyone during the day much less trying to find it at night. Even when you knew where to look in the first place, it was supposed to be hard to find. Finally when they were able to locate it, they still had to check out the nearby area to make sure they were alone and not walking into an ambush of some kind. They had been there the night before, but you never knew who might have found it while they were gone. It would have turned out very bad if they were ambushed by the New Comers, or these very hostel seeming new metal ones.

After making sure the camp was as it should be, they quickly entered the covered area and dropped their packs off their sore backs. The little heater was activated this time, the cool air felt great on the sweat stained wet cloths. At least for now, but who knew how long it would last. They got something to eat, and were sitting quietly waiting until the sun would start coming up. They kept the weapons at the ready, and most defiantly not on "safe" mode. They had decided that they wanted at least some light to see by. When they started to put some distance between them and the Refugee camp on the other side of the hill. It would be early enough that very few people would be up, and David and Rex would not need the lights mounted on their two vehicles to pack or travel by. The soon to rise sun, should add just enough more light for their night vision devices to work the best before they had to be shut off. They could avoid hitting anything, and avoid leaving a trail that someone or something might fallow them for a good bit of distance. At least that was plan they had worked out after about ten minutes of getting undercover of the cold camp's tarp. Now all they needed to do was live through the rest of the night to give the plan a try.

None of them could get any real restful sleep that night. At the slightest hint of noise outside the covering. They both would have drawn their weapons out from under the covers, and be waiting to hear the sound again. It was during one of these events that David spoke the first words aloud in hours that they had been in the cold camp.

"Rex did you notice the outer covering on those metal things." When Rex did not respond quick enough to satisfy him. David took as him saying that, he was waiting to find out what David was thinking about. "The metal had a finish, almost like brushed nickel or something like it. I was thinking about the Glitter Boys, that I saw the Free Quebec military use once. I don't know why, it just popped into my head. Maybe it was because, I saw a few of the new designed Boy's before we came here. Anyway, I remember the most striking thing was that they are very shinny." David stopped talking and let a soft snicker escape his lips. "Well, besides when that boom gun of theirs went off. From what I remember being told. Is that it is supposed to be of some help when they are hit by laser weapons fire. It somehow reflexes some of the energy away from the skin, before it starts working its way through the outer layer of metal skin."

Rex nodded his head up and down twice, before adding his own soft spoken words to the night air. "Now that you said something, you could be right. I didn't remember seeing any of the people firing lasers or any other energy type weapons for that matter. I did get quite a few images of them using slug throwers by the people and the newer ones in the camp. I could hear the reports when they were shooting at the metal ones after they landed." He pulled out the camera and started to review some of the images, on the small display on the back of the device. It took him a few seconds to find and image that he wanted, and passed it over to the other scout. "Check this out David, even the metal war-machines, I think are using just slug throwers. The arm mounted weapons, and the big honking machine gun all seemed to be slug throwers. The finish might help against laser weapons, but I would bet that it will not help them against ION weapons." Rex patted the heavy ION pistol on his lap, but was lost in a thought for a few long seconds. "I saw an old Glitter Boy, take a lot of damage from Plasma fire and Rail guns some years back." Now he turned so that David could see his face in the slight glow cast by the camera screen. He had a predator smile, with lots of teeth showing. "And we have both types of weapons. Remember these metal ones are not just packing their slug throwers." He was thinking about how one of the metal walking weapons, had used its hands to literally rip apart a woman. She was just trying to run away from the war-machine. She did not even have a weapon, much less had been firing at the walking red eyed beer cans. Rex was thinking about his long dead wife, Zrara. He was very sensitive when it came to female noncombatants being killed. "Maybe we need to get one of them to, you know to test how tough they might be to kill?" Rex was thinking about doing is own test, but quickly shook it off, because they needed to let people back home know about this change of events. Then he would see about doing his own little bet of testing.

For the first time in a long time Rex did not wake up when he wanted to, but by the buzzing in his ear. It was provided by a clock he had put in his body, long before coming to this cold planet. David woke up within a few seconds of Rex starting to move. David would never know what had woke him up from his own fitful sleep. Was it his own internal clock, or the slight noise that Rex made moving around the cold camp in the dark? They had prepped this camp as much as they could, so that they could pull out quick during their awake times. It was only a delay of 10 or 15 minutes, to get the camp fully packed back down. All most all of the cold camp went into the back of David's hover command car.

Then both of them were driving back in their two hover vehicles, to where they hopped the road had advanced to while they had been on mission. They had made sure to have a copy of the planned route of expansion of the road. Before they had left the newly founded advanced camp last time, but things changed and nothing goes as planned. That was why it was called a "Planned Route" and not "The Route". Now if only they had only kept to the planned schedule, it would make Rex's and David's job a lot easier. In other words, they were not counting on it one little bit.

They were riding into the sun when it came up, but until it started to crest the curve of the planet, this was more of a help than a hindrance at least for a few hours. The pair of racing scouts used this increased visibility and time wisely. They were able to put a medium sized mountain ridge, between them and camp, as they headed east at a good rate of speed. Even though it was the same ridge that they were using as a wood cutting lot. It should be empty of life for a few more hours at the worst case scenario. If the local stuck to their old seclude, the wood cutting teams would not be leaving for another three or four hours. By then the two scouts would be past another bend in the ridge long line and be out of site of the potential threat area.

The two scouts were barely able to average 100 mph for a mix of reasons. One was because of the wild growth, and other one was the need to stay under the cover of the branches of the massive trees overhead. They did almost caused a fire fight to break out, when they surprised another scout trying to make it back to the same base camp as they were. He was still just starting to take down his camp, and repacking it on his Northern Gun made heavy duty off road motorcycle at speed. It was just by sheer luck, that they did not start shooting at each other at first hint of contact being made. The massive trees had affected the way sounds moves in the heavy forest. It was a case of one second they were seeing tree after tree, and then next second. They could see the whites of another man's eyes at point blank range. It happened so fast that the two hover transport were blocked by more trees, by the time the third scout could pull his weapon free of his tied down hip holster. The Rex and David hit the emergency reverse thrusters on their pair of hover transport. They quickly lost speed, and fully stopped for a few seconds to get there heart rates back to something close to normal. This only took a few seconds to happen, and then the "mad" kicked into with full force. They did a quick 180 degree turn, and this time slowly returned to the camp site of the third scout they had run threw at all of ten feet off the ground.

The two hover craft came to a stop only about 50 feet from the third human, and his wheeled craft under a thicker part of the heavy overhead green canopy. Rex was the first one to get free of his transportation and with a quick flip of his visor. He could vent so of his anger, without damaging or using his radio. "Dam it Chuck Finley! I almost ventilated you! Don't you know better than to set up a camp on any kind of trail? What if we were bad guys, or if it turned out that is planet has large and hungry land based animals that had been missed so far? You would have been dog meat so fast, you would not have been able to kick over your beer." Spilling beer was a universal sign of struggle for certain groups that moved in the deep wilderness. Spilling your beer by accident, was a major party foul among all of the scouts. That was even before they came to his world were beer was in very short supply, and good beer was still completely absent.

Chuck was an old man, and the oldest scout by a large margin. He knew his scouting skills in the woods had slipped from just being sub-par, to just plain bad over the last few years. He was still a great swimmer, and what he could pull off in a built up area like a town or city. Well, you just had to be seen it, to be believed it. It was considered to be borderline magical, so he still had some scouting skills. It was just as a woodland scout that he was not at the top tier, anymore. He was even a great shot using iron sites. With anything but a missile launcher at any combat range, except very long range. So when another scout berated him, he took it to heart. Now he looked like someone had just killed his cat or drank his last glass of beer. "Yea, Yea I know Rex. I got sort of lazy last night. I was so tired that I almost hit a tree, back there. So I just pulled over to grab some quick shut eye. You know how it is, sometimes." He looked at the two scouts and made a guess on why they were heading back to the road camp. With a twinkle in his eye, he put a sly smile on his face. "So you boys were watching the tin cans and clones, bust up the camp yesterday?"

By this time David had his armored helmet off, and now could say something without it activating his radio automatically. He did not even think of just opening the armored visor, like Rex had done. "We were. So you were one of the other scouts that lucked into our find?" David did not like Chuck at all, and he had made no bone about it to anyone who would listen. Rex thought it might be just a simple as a young dog vs. old dog thing. Younger scouts, thought they know everything there was to know about a given job. Old scouts thought the younger ones were full of…. Hot air. "Yea it was hot air." Rex had to mentally bite his tongue.

Chuck just shrugged his shoulders, and the tone that David had used did not seem to affect him one little bit. "Guess I was. I got some good images, when they tin heads and clones landed. And when they started shooting up the place. I figured I need to get out of there soonish, with all of my information intact. Just in case it went from you know bad, to very bad. I'm betting those metal ones will be setting up something like watch towers around the grounded ships, to keep everyone in line by sundown today."

David was just waiting to belittle the other scout again, and he saw the opening. He jumped in with both feet and a smug look on his face. "We have images also, and more audio recordings of them talking. Looks like you information might only be good for some foot notes or something like that. What do you think Rex, will they even give him charge money for what he has?" David had not even looked Rex's way when he had been talking.

Rex had known that David did not like Chuck, but he did not think it was this bad. David was acting like a school yard bully, kicking a guy and carping on all of his hard work. He was just about to say something to David, to make the other scout back off some. That was when he saw that Chuck had his head down like he was dejected or something. On closer look, Rex could tell that the head down thing was hiding a sly smile from the other man. David could not see the smile because of the perfect amount of tilting of Chuck's head. Rex quickly decided to just wait, and let it play out as it may. He would be an impartial witness to whatever played out between those two men. He had an idea who was going to win this particular measuring contest. Rex was betting on that it was not going to the younger one man, this time.

Chuck reached into a hidden pocket, inside his camouflaged combat jumpsuit and pulled out a data stick. He was waving it in air kind of like a magic wand of some kind. "Oh I got some great photos of the new ones, but that was not the information I was talking about. This is what I was talking about." Chuck waved the data clip in the air like a flag under David's nose. "I was able to get a medical scanner into an outhouse, for a few days, out on the edge of the camp." He reached down into this rucksack and pulled out a few round specimen dishes. "I even was able to get some physical samples from a humanoid body that they left out, during some kind of burial ceremony. It should be enough for the white coat guys and girls, to figure out if they are really human or something else." His smile went from sly, too full powered cocky in a flash of an eye blink. "So what little goodies are you guys bring back to add to the data files this time?" His tone was exactly the same one that David's had been using only a few seconds ago, when he had been talking at Chuck.

David was doing a great imitation of a dying fish, complete with soft gulping for air sounds, along with the fish lips mouth movements. Rex looked at David and made note of what "God Smacked" looked like in real life. Rex let it go on for a few more long seconds, before he jumped into the discussion to stop the pain. "We have some great images of their small crescent shaped craft, and the big box like landing craft. We also have some good images of them using three different types of weapons on the New Comers and two different types of weapons being used against the metal ones. We also have voice recordings of the old group and the clones as you called them speaking. We also got some good images of seven different looking clones, so far. It should be enough for FRS (facial recognition software) to chew on, and come up with something useful. We started our bug out, just after it started to get dark. It looks like the metals ones, put everyone under some kind of curfew before we took down our hide site. We stayed in our cold camp, until just before sunrise. Then we hit the road with the sun in their eyes, if they were look our way. I think they might start looking around the local area first. In case they did not catch everyone in the camp, when they landed and did their first sweeps of the camp." Chuck was older and he might have some experience on this type of thing. Like calling the human leaders of the metal one clones. It made sense to Rex as soon as Chuck had voiced the connections.

"Well brother, you and David stuck around a lot longer than I did that is for damn sure. I started my bug out boogie, as soon as I thought the new ones wanted a fight. I packed up my Wastelander and was getting ready head out, before those bigger styled landing ships finished unloading. That was when, I saw the clone leading the tin cans into the camp. I had that feeling that it was not going to be a very friendly meeting between the two groups. I just punched out, and tried to put as much distance between them and me as fast as I could in as short amount of time. And before you point it out David." The tone from Chuck was biting as an artic wind blast. "I made sure not to leave any tracks when I was leaving. I would say I did a bang up job making sure I didn't leave any signs behind me in the dark. That is if you two could not find them till you almost ran me over. So if you don't know I was here, then they should have an equally hard time figuring out I was there. Where you as careful?"

Rex was thinking that David was not going to like what he was about to suggest, that made Rex stop for a whole two seconds. Rex was thinking that having three guns, were better than having only two guns. With an unknown size and skill group out there, who could be not too friendly? "We are all going the same place, Chuck. Why don't you join up with us? It might be safer in a single convoy, if someone stumbles on us with bad intentions."

David looked like he had been kicked in the jimmy by a combat boot with attached rocket jets on "high burn". Chuck just tilted his head to one side and gave a sly smile back to Rex, and made a point of not looking at the younger scout. "No Rex, I would just slow you down in this type of crap." He waved to the thick undergrown and root systems bulging from the soil. "I will just fallowing along behind you, until we find out where the base camp has moved too. It something comes in behind us, I can slow them down. Until you can come back and bail me out of trouble." Chuck knew that it he got into a firefight, he was going to be on his own for a long time. Even if his words make you think it would be a Calvary charging over the ridge to help him. Like one of those old moves that played in small town on a summers night. Things just did not work out that way in the real world.

David was already making his way to his command car at a measured pace, and waving over his shoulder to the words the other scout had said. Rex was looking at his back, maybe David did learn something during this exchange because he kept his mouth shut thought Rex. "Well Chuck nice to meet you on a mission. Stay safe and we will see you at camp. And great job on getting those samples by the way. That was some good work getting them, and out, so far without them noticing you." He turned and threw his leg over this hover cycle and pulled his helmet visor back down. "Keep it safe, why don't you." Rex gave his machine some throttle and pulled away from the other man standing in the middle of the cold wet wilderness, now very much alone.

The two hover craft made their way under cover provided by the overhead tree limbs, until the local sun was directly overhead. This was a bad time to travel, if someone want to stay unseen by the locals. Without the shadows cast by the huge trees, to give the pair any cover. It could make it easier for anyone flying overhead, a better chance to see them close to the ground. Now that the shadows made by the trees were gone for a few hours. They pulled off of the faint trail, and took turns getting a few hours of sleep and some getting some cold food into them to work on refueling their bodies. They were back on the trail for another few hours of traveling, now that the shadows were back. When the sun was almost all the way down in the western sky. The pair pulled off the faint trail again, and came to a full stop about 500 meter away from the marked trail. They set up a small and dark camp under the massive trees limbs and root. As Rex relaxed under the catalogue covering he was thinking. They had not heard or seen Chuck all day after the first chance meeting. They could have kept going with use of the passive night vision googles, they were just tried to risk traveling more.

David's command car had a better built in surveillance system than Rex's Turbo. No matter who was on guard shift that night? That was the location of the on duty watcher. You would be surprised how comfortable the back seat was. When you had only been able to get a few hours of sleep here and there for the last few days. They used the same two hours on and two hours off for the rest of the night. They had a quite night with only a few over flights of something detected by the passive system. They had no way of knowing what type of craft it was, or from which group it might have been with. Their systems just were not that powerful in low observing mode, that David had set them to generate that kind of information.

When the sun was almost up again, they were not exactly fully rested, but they were mission capable to complete the drive. They did not do much talking again, they barley pass a dozen words between them for the rest of the morning. They were just to stressed out, and worn out to do much more than what was required of their bodies. It was more of rote memory of eating, cleaning themselves, and checking the two transports, and doing any repairs on their vehicles. That was before getting back on the faint trail again. Scouts were not know as being the type that filled quite air with useless noise, but even this level of quite was not what even they would have call "normal".

They had been on the trail again for less than three hours, when a kid in a Plastic Man body armor stepped out from behind a large rough bark tan colored tree trunk. He had put his C-12 laser assault rifle down from high port. And aimed level right with the wind screen of David's little open air Command car. When the two scouts brought their hover transport to a halt, Rex did not pull out his ION pistol, but he did put his hand close to it, just in case. Rex looked around the local area, and noticed the two supporting armored troopers. They were behind a low, but very natural looking built up barrier. The odds were almost 100 percent that they were from the Settlement, and after a hand full of seconds, he noticed a few low cut limbs. They had the look of having just been taken down by vibro-blade weapon of some size.

When the person, there was no way to tell if the person that was wearing the protective armor was male or female, until they spoke or removed the armors helmet. The odd looking body armor approached David, so that the challenge and password could be given without risking someone overhearing them do so. The closeness of the exchange was something that had changed over the last week. It did make it so that that anyone else who might be close would not be able to hear it. That is unless one of them had been wired with a mike and transmitter of some kind. Or so close they would have been in either person's back pocket. That being quite would have been the least of their problems than a password leaking out.

Radio transmissions were banded almost from the first day they arrived on this cold world from their battle damaged Earth. Rex could only wait, while the two talked and wonder what was being exchanged. Suddenly there were a few wild arm movements, then finally one steady point of the arm by the person in the Plastic Man armor. Then David started to move again, very slowly, he was only moving about ten mph and it was not increasing. Not even by a little bit. The body armor just waved for Rex to continue, down a slightly clearer path laid out in front of them without being challenged for the password. This was the advanced party of the trail building team. David and Rex had passed the trail marking team without even seeing them. They had been looking for threats but still they had not been seen. It just was a proof of how tired they were.

As they drove farther down the path, it slowly became clearer of obstructions and straighter allowing them to speed up somewhat. They were passing more and more workers as they speed along down the slowly improving path/road at the top speed of only 40 mph. The trail now was almost up to a dirt road statues, when they made a sharpish corner they saw a marker for the road building camp site. This new path led them away from the main trail, and to a rock bottom and dryish gully. This then leads a little deeper in woods off to one side of the trail. It was about half a mile from the main trail that they found what they were looking for on the bank of the dryish gully.

The Forward trail base camp was spaced out to hide it fully under the tree's covering limbs. The camp was mostly made up of little four man tents for people. But it did had a few larger tents to cover equipment when it was not in use or needed up keeping. The three largest tents would have been listed as 20 man tents on an old army inventory sheet. Now they were a support tent, and a pair command tents of this little operation. The whole camp was designed to be broken up, and moved easily. It also had as small of a cargo load foot print, as they could manage with what they had on hand. It was still an impressive operations that had a huge job to do.

David parked underneath one of the nearby trees close to one of the larger tents. Rex picked another large tree with a large bell of limbs overhead. He like that it had a nice sized bush growing beside it, about eight foot high. He had a slight grin on his helmet covered face, as he parked under that particular tree. This would be the location of their sleeping area later, but that was after they found the nearest available field latrine. That was more pressing matter for Rex, than passing along information at the moment.

Major Mike Weston, was the late XO of the mercenary company sized unit called "The Wrecking Crews". That was before, he had been hired to take over as the QRF commander for the main facility GAW had on the east coast. After he had gotten use to the idea, that he and his family were not on Earth anymore. They quickly made a list of things that they needed or wanted to get done. He had stated looking for something to do with his time and skills. Even before the wooden wall was finished being built. He was not the type to be able to just sit around, and spin on his thumb for any length of time. He pitched in and help with the building of the Settlement, after submitting his resume to the Captain of the Lucky Find. The governing body had quickly hired and "promoted" him to the rank of Major from his current rank of Captain. This was so that it would not confuse everyone with another "Captain" running around the Settlement.

He was now, in charge of all of the land base military operations, and deputy to the Road Master now that they knew they were not alone on this planet. Right now Major Weston was looking over a large scale paper map laid out on hip high wooden table, built of local wood. He was trying to figure out when would be the best time to, shift or jump his support base forward again. It was a twofold problem, the timing was important, but more important he needed to pick a good spot to reset up the camp. He had seen the two scouts heading to his "command tent". He had a gift for matching faces to names, which again served him well today. He looked at a wall mounted calendar and checked the dates against his mission notes. When they pulled the flap farther open, he got his first good look at the men's faces. Major Weston felt his spine starting to tingle, he could tell the pair of scouts thought that they had a bombshell to give him.

Major Weston schooled his face to show nothing of what was going on in his brain. "Well you two are back early. We were not expecting any of you scouts to come in for four or five more days, at the earliest." He tried to make his voice light and joking, but that was not his style. "Did you two get tired of the cold food, and wet sleeping bags already or something?" The tone was light and jesting to his ear. The look he received from the two scouts, was his first clue that something was up and his comment had fell flat. Mike Weston was betting that these two were not playing some kind of game and something was up, that could be dangerous to him and his family.

For the next half hour, and with some show and tell to prove that the pair were saying was true. The two scouts brought up to speed Major Weston, on what had been happening to the visitor's camp those few hand full of hours ago. That they had been tasked to keep under observation. Major Weston was quiet and just listens to the two men, as they told their story. They had just finished telling him about the little items that Chuck was bringing in with him. They had not told the part about not seeing him again, yet. This is when Weston stopped the verbal briefing by raising his right hand palm out. Rex had been the one talking at that and stopped mid-sentence at the command.

"Well that changes a few things, gentlemen." He went to one of the few tables in the tent, and picked up a phone. The hard line had just been extended to this location a day or two ago. The wire was made by only the things, which they could find on this planet. This way it should not be going into short supply. That is as long as they could find the stuff, and had the time to make it with. They had laid four individual strands, of what would have been called eight twisted pair a long time ago. The wires were in a quarter sized pipe. The pipe was laid underground, and inside a water and weather proof liner. It went all the way back to the Settlement's slowly growing switch board. From this device, Major Weston could connect to most other command areas that the Triumvirate had set up so far.

It might not have been the most high tech device, or the fastest way to communicate. But it had the additional advantage, of no one being able to listen in outside of the wire switch board. And they did not have to worry about animals eating the thing. Weston shot a look over his shoulder at the two scouts still standing around the hip tall wooden table. They were quite but there eyes were sharp if tired, and watching every movement the Major or anyone else in the tent made.

"Why don't you two get some hot food at the mess tent, and check in at the other operations tent. While you're there, you need to pick up two IR Flags for each of you. I need you to mark your sleeping area before dark, that way no one will run over you in the night by mistake." He gave a small smile and a head nod, to the two men before they turned to leave the tent. "I have a feeling, after I let the Triumvirate know what has been going on. They will have another mission for your two or a few hundred questions to make your brain bleed. Come to think about it, they will probably feel the same way to you both do now. Don't go running away from camp after it gets dark."

The two scouts had very different priorities. After getting the IR flags as directed and putting them near their planned individual sleeping areas. David went to get some hot food first thing, and Rex went about setting up his camp fully. That was before he was heading to the little box set up, to provide the mobile camp occupants with a hot shower. They both did the same things, but each had his own idea of what was most important to be done first. While Rex was eating, David set up his camp and took his own hot shower. Rex was relaxing reading a novel on an e-reader, when someone outside this tent made a noise to attract his attention.

The unknown person sounded young, or was female, or could have been both. It called out into the damp air in what most would call a normal speaking volume. To Rex, it sounded loud enough to draw enemy fire or wake the dead. "Sir, the Major would like you to come to the planning tent. He needs to see you both right away."

Rex did not get up from this nest that was his sleeping area, right away. He felt that he was not some grunt, to be order around. He softly said back to the voice outside of his tent, but he did not intend for it carry. "Well so much for catching up on my reading." He raised his voice now, so that he knew the person on the other side of the barrier could hear him. "Please let the Major know, I will be there as soon as I'm dressed."

Rex did not know if David had been called in, and did not walk over to his sleeping area to find out. If the Major wanted David, then he would be there. If not well, David was a big boy and it was not Rex's job to baby sit anyone. Besides scouts normally worked alone, so if the Major wanted David? He would have sent the runner over to his camping area also. Why ruin the little time off David might have, if it turned out that he was not needed after all. Rex was not moving as fast has he was capable of when he stared to get redressed. It was not like someone was firing into the camp, or his sleeping area after all to motivate him to move fasters. He should be far enough back from any threats that he could just walk, to where he was needed. He was thinking as he walked and groused, he was thinking about how tired he was. When he made it to the planning tent, David was already there with Major Weston. The two men were sitting down, with their feet propped up on a convenient desk. While they waited for the last person to arrive at the meeting, that person being Rex.

The Major looked up when Rex came through the double layered night tent flaps, but he had slight smile on his face. "Now that everyone is here, let's get started shall we. I have been told to ask if you, both will take activation into the military at an agreed upon rank. You don't have to, but it would help now and later on down the road I think." Weston waited for the two men to respond to the request. He had a mental bet on what the outcome would be over the next few minutes.

Rex could see that David was not happy, that the meeting had started off this way. Rex quickly realized that whatever the two had been talking about while they waited on Rex. This was not it. With a frown David looked at the Major. "Sir. I don't mind the work, don't get me wrong, but I like being able to turn down crazy jobs if I fell like it. That is without someone threating to put me under the brig, or something equally as nasty in their minds. Been there done that, have the T-shirts, and wish I could give them back."

Major Weston did not seem to be surprised by what David had said to him and kept glancing between the two very different scouts in front of him. "That is what I thought, but I was told to ask anyway. We do have another mission for you, if you would like. If this new group is so hostile. Then it's a good bet, that when metal ones took that camp. Someone of the older group might have been outside the camp or escaped soon afterwards. Maybe before the metal ones were in full control of the housing area. We will be sending the other scouts back out as soon as they check in. We don't want to make contact with any escapees at this time. But we will need to know where they are hiding, numbers, and any weapons they might have with them. We also need any information about this new group we can get. Do you want the job Mr. Boone?" Major Weston was tilting his head to the left and waited. He had a metal bet with himself that the other scout would do it. But it was going to be dull work and that might or might not be a good thing.

David looked at the map on display on the table. Rex could tell that he was thinking about going back to the Settlement, but he knew that it was only a passing thought of David's. Neither man was surprised when David stated to talk after less than a full minutes, while still looking down at the map. "Yea I can do that. Can I take a day or two to get some sleep and replace my supplies, before I have to go back out?"

Major Weston smiled a big toothy grin, and passed over a supply chit to David. "Just give this to the supply truck driver, along with a wish list. He will help with that they can, and yes leaving in two days is okay. I do need you back out there, in no more than three days if you can manage it. We need to get as many eyes back on this situation, as soon as we can get. We just need to be safe about, it so no Pecos drills, if you know what I mean." In another time "The Pecos Drill" would have been called going cowboy, or someone who has going off the reservation. "Now Rex, the Stapps will be at the camp in about 12 hours. They were stopping for the night, but now they are pushing it. They should be here around dawn or not long after. The supply convoy that they were coming out with will make it later, around noon maybe." Weston did a tilting side to side motion with his right hand. "I sent a runner down the trail to light a fire under Chuck four point of contact. Maybe he will get here sooner rather than later, he drives like my grandmother." Weston had an evil smile on his face now, and was sitting a little more forward in the wooden high backed chair. "I told them to pass along a message, that I had a few bottles of the new run of home brewed beers setting out. They are for him, and the longer he takes to get here, the fewer of them will be waiting on him." Weston relaxed and put on are on the back rest of the chair. "Now Rex what about you? Are you in the military, our just want to pick up the odd job that might or might not fall out of the sky?"

Rex already knew the answer, before the Major had said a word directed at him. There were advantages to being the quite one, some times. "I'm in, what do you have for me? Oh crap! What is my rank going to be?" He did not need to ask about a pay scale, there was one, and it was well known to the whole Settlement. All Rex needed to find out, was where he was on that list.

Major Weston showed a little more of an unsure expression on his face, than what he had when David had made his statement. "I don't have a mission for you right now Rex. I was told that the Stapps, would have a mission that they would like someone to do but that was all I have. I was told that Sergeant would be your ranks, if you went on the military side. Do the two of you have any more questions?" When the two men shook their head in the negative, he moved on. "Well let's close this gentlemen. I have about a million things to do, thanks to the load of little bomb shells you two dropped on my desk today. I will see you all in the morning, now go get some real rest."


	10. Chapter 10 The Hand off chap 6

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **Chapter 6 The Hand off**

 **New Caprica,**

 **668 Days after the Fall of the Colonies,**

 **3 years 1 month 28 days AT**

Rex woke up when the alarm in his head started to scream like an air raid siren from hell. Luckily, it was only in his head. He was able to turn it off with a mental trick they had showed him when they had installed the device when he had been all of 14 years old. All of the noise though had been between his ears. This way there had not been anything to alert would be enemies of his presents. Rex did not move now that he was awake. He had been enjoying dreaming about some of the happier times he had with now dead wife Zrara. This made it so that he did not want to leave the dream world, and come back to his cold place. Rex did not even open his eyes, it was still dark around him. Without any animal or insects to help him know if something was wrong, Rex was left to use his second set of skills. Rex slowly opened his eyes, and let his mind relaxed. He used his ears to tell him what was going on around him and his skin in contact with the ground to feel any heavy movement. He could hear the light fall of water, as it feel from leaves and branches to the forest floor. Louder was the heavier sound, as the fall of rain drops on to the dirt and rocks of the same floor. He waited for some time, to make sure that there were nothing moving around him that might want to do him harm. When he thought he might be alone he slowly started to move. He first was only moving his eyes, to see what was in his front 90 degrees of view, then he stated to slowly move his head until he had scanned the total of 220 degrees from his reclined but still seated location.

Satisfied that he was alone, for now. He moved, but he did it quietly and slowly. He did not have a line of sight to the "dirt road", which the humans had been using to get to the logging site. He had to be very careful, his life depended on it. With a mound of rock and bushes to give him cover, he pulled the top of his camouflage suit open. It was nice to have the fresh air on his face again, even if it was a bit cold and damp. He went about his normal morning field routine make sure he was not leaving any signs of his presents. When he was almost done, he noticed that he need to reapply the camouflage face makeup, which had worn away with his morning routine and overnight. He pulled out a compact from one of his field pack's many small side pockets. It had a mirror and a section of 30 different colored grease based face paints for him to choose from. This is where the art in camouflaging comes in to play. He uses different colors and a mixed a few of his own tinted colors to perfectly match the rocks and vegetation around him. The really hard part was painting his eyelids with the heavy water and oil resistant paint, and not hurting himself while he was doing it. It would have been like putting a contact lens in your eye. But it was cover in maple syrup, and you had a set of ski gloves on. When he was satisfied of the reflection in the little mirror. He pulled the hood of his suit back over his head and started to slowly walk to the short distance to logging area. He was not doing the normal sniper crawl, just slowly walking, but keeping a keen look out. He made it around the rough cut road, just as the sun was high enough over the horizon, to really be called sunrise. Now he had to find another good place to wait. When he found it, he had scouted out four of five spots already. Now all he had to do was see if he was going to be lucky today or not.

Rex had shifted positions twice now that he was in the set up in the logging area. Each move had only been a by a few hundred yards each time. But it had taken him almost half an hour for each of those moves, he felt like he had to make. He wanted to be able to signal out one of the humans, hopeful it would be the right human. He was betting that these humans would not have thought, that they would run into other humans on a strange planet. The Stapps had run the tests a dozen times on each of the samples that Chuck had brought out, to what is now called the Main Camp or Main Support Camp. That was not all that happened in the six days since he had been enlisted by Major Weston. They had also set up a smaller forward camp that was closer to where the action might be centered at. It was about 200 miles away from the strangers with a nice tall ridge between the two, just in case things went badly. After Rex had dropped off this package, he was supposed to make his way to this contact site, then he could go to the new camp site. This was going to his first time to see this site and he knew it would not have that much to see.

Rex was not sleeping as much as he just was there. The Sun had been up for almost four hours when he was brought out of the trance. That was when Rex heard the sound of an internal combustion engine of the truck, which the strangers used for the wood hauling task. When the larg wheeled truck made a turn in the rough dirt trail. It would put the driver under observation from Rex's current location. He noticed that six tin men were running alongside the military style cargo truck. They seemed to be acting as some kind of escorts for the coughing beast as it made its way to the only real flat and clear spot around.

The truck came to a stop in almost the exactly the same spot, it had the other times they had come out to cut wood. It was so close to the same spot, that they also most stopped in the tire tracks left from the last trip out to this place. Six Humans did exit the truck form the back, and the crew cab of the truck. Rex pulled out his small spy glass from a pocket under his outer ghillie suit. He slowly put it up to his right eye, and studied each face in the little clearing. It did not take him long to notice that, none of the faces matched the clones that they had images off. That did not mean that they were not clones in the nearby group. It was just that they had not been identified yet. All of the clones noted so far had two feature that made them stand out from the rest of the humans. They had no problem working very closely with the metal units, and look to be in "command" of any operations that had the metal types around. Rex would be staying away from any organic that displayed any one of those two traits. He had been briefed that the Oldman and the Bald types, had been noticed overseeing humans working outside of the prison camp, more often than other types of "clones" they had seen. Most of the faces he saw on his little device, did match images he had studied. They had been supplied by one of the other scouts, which had able to observe the last two wood cutting trips. One person he was looking was there, and he was heading towards the area the space faring stranger had worked before. Just as Rex had hoped he would and his last briefing had told him, that the stranger would do.

Tucker "Duck" Clellan hated to leave is expecting wife behind in the cylon controlled camp, but he need to cut wood. The reason he need to be out here under close observation of the cylons in the middle of a cold and wet forest. Was that the little hovel that he had made with his own to hands, would keep some of this wood to burn to keep her warm on this very cold and damp Hades of a planet. Duck had a sad smile on his face that he did not notice. He was thinking that it might be cold, wet, and tiring work. But at least he was able to put some distance between himself, and the human form Cylons that was watching over the work going on in the camp like some kind of birds of prey. By the Gods! They made his skin crawl when they walled threw the dirt streets of New Caprica.

As Duck walked toward a 30 meter tall tan barked titan, he looked up and up to the high green leafed bell of the tree. He wished again, that the labor crew had power tools to gather the needed wood. He did not even have a proper wood cutting ax to work with today. The red handled ax in his hands, was a demolition version of the age old tool called an ax. That meant that he would have to work harder, to get the same amount of effect on the hard local trees. Duck shifted the weight of the ax from one hand to the other as we walked up to a tree on one side of the slowly growing clear cut field. He had started to cut down on the last trip, but he had run out of time before he could drop the tall living thing. Today he would complete bring it down to the mud, and rigging it with rope and straps. Then they could pull it back to the people in the camp who needed it to keep warm for a few days. This area had supplied much of the softer and workable wood, to help build all of the little shanty's that had go up around the grounded space ships. Now all they were allowed to do, was come out and cut enough of the needed wood for fuel to keep warm by.

Duck was just getting in the zone, working on bring the tree down. Swing after swing Duck was striking a slowly growing cut into the side of his target tree. When his Viper pilot senses made him stop, just as his ax bit again into the off yellow inner part of the tree. All of the Centurions were away from him, and they did not seem to be looking at him. He decided that was not what had caused the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He kept looking around his local area, to try to figure out what was wrong. He let the ax head drop to his side, and started to do a slow turn to look deeper into the wet woods behind him. He was also done with his scanning, when he looked at bush that was growing out of the side of an out cropping of rock near him. Then it hit him like someone putting a live power cord to his genitals. The bush had blue eyes, and they were looking right at him! They even blinked or winked at him! Duck was like a deer caught in head lights of a car on a very dark night. He felt rooted to the ground in the fight or flight reaction that could not make up its mind on what to do.

Rex was in the area he felt was right for him to be in. His target was a person that they had images of from before the clones landed and seemed to come out of the closely watched camp. Major Weston and his staff, were pretty sure that he was human and not part of the group that had started shooting up everything. The target that Rex was looking for walked up to the tree, which he had been working the last time he had been here. Rex watched as he went back using a dull hand ax to finish the back cut, so that the tree would fall away from the outcropping of rock that Rex was hiding beside. When his target shifted to start the main cut, he was standing almost beside Rex. He did not seem to notice that Rex was there at all. After some time Rex knew he had to do something, before the target could finish dropping the tree. Rex slowly flipped the ghillie suit hood up to expose his face to the other man's back.

The other man must have heard the cloth moving because Rex was directly behind him, there was no way that he could have seen Rex move. The man slowed in mid swig of the ax, and after looking toward the tin men he stared to scan the area around him. The target pulled the ax out of the meat of the tree and let the head drop, but he still had a good grip on the on non-organic handle. The first time he looked in Rex's direction, it did not seem like he saw the scout even with his face fully exposed. Then the target tracked back to look right at the scout, dead in the face and he stopped moving. It did not take but a second or two for scout to realize that the man was about to do something, that would blow the mission. Rex did the only thing he could think of. After all it had worked with children before, the one other time Rex had done it.

Duck was about to scream his head off. What else could you do? When you're on an alien planet, and come face to face with a living bush with a human face in it? This was so not covered in any military school Duck had gone to, or even seen on an entertainment channel. Then the bush held up a very human looking hand that was just a mix of colors, which were not anywhere close to skinned coloring of a human. The hand closed into a fist with one finger extended upwards. The multi colored finger then was pressed vertical, from the tip of the "bushes" nose over the closed lips to dark multi-color strong human like chin. A slight hissing sound escaped the lips of the bush/man not four feet Duck. For some reason that would cause Duck no end of sleepless nights. He did nothing but release the ax handle that was in his hands to fall softly on the wet ground, cutting head first.

This seemed to have pleased the man bush thing. Ever so slowly the bushman pointed over towards one of the Centurions standing the open, and then drew the one finger across its throat like he was cutting his head off. Duck nodded his head to hopefully, let the bush know that he understood that he knew the Centurions were dangerous. The hand moved again, and this time it opened the front of the bush. It was now exposing a camouflaged but very human like uniform underneath the bush like outer covering. It unhooked a medium sized laptop in a carrying harness from its chest. The pair of very human like hands, then and passed the harness and laptop computer sized object over to him all in one lump. Duck did not even think twice, and opened his own rain proof overcoat. The straps were simple and in a handful of seconds he had strapped the computer to his own chest. After Duck had closed his overcoat to the cold air, the bush smiled showing very human white teeth. It said something that Duck could not understand in a soft and low voice. It sounded like it had a mouth full of chit cubits, to Duck's cold numb tone deaf ears. The Bush/man then pulled out a cream colored packaged that was about a hand width with wide, and about two hands long. It reached out slowly and put it into Ducks hands empty. Then in the same motion he flipped some kind of fabric with bits hang off hood back over his face. If Duck had not been looking right at him, when bushman did it. He did not think, that he would have been able to make out the bush man's location against the back ground rock and vegetation. If he had not seen it before the stranger had completely blinded into the back ground he never would have notice it.

Duck looked down at his coat front to see if he could see any give away bulges. He was relieved to notice that he did not need to make any adjustments to make the package invisible from the outside view. When he did not see any. He kneeled down and picked up the battered ax from the mud again. Out of the corner of his eye, Duck could just make out the slowly moving Bush/Man. It was just as it was disappearing around the end of the outcrop of rock behind him. Duck thought that he might have been noticed that he was not working. That was because two metal heads, were now walking towards him in there slow measured gate of the walking death machines. He was trying not to watch them as they walked toward him from the other side of the clearing. The two Centurions stopped moving as he went back to work taking small hunks, more like chips of wood out of the side of the hard tree. He was thinking, maybe if he timed it right or if he was better at this wood cutting thing. He could land the massive piece of soon to be falling wood on their heads of the tin head. He thought this to himself, trying not to think about what he had stripped to his chest. It did not work, and soon he was working on cutting the tree down, but thinking about the odd shaped package in his outer coat pocket and the maybe computer strapped to his chest. When the tree started to fall, he quickly noticed when he looked up and then down towards the ground, that the falling tree would miss the nearest now standing cylons by a good distance. Then a strange thought crossed his mind in a flash, and if anyone would have been very close to him they would have heard. "I really hope they did not give me a bomb to strap to my Fraking chest. That would just by my Fraking luck."

Rex was almost a quarter of a mile away from the wood cutting group, when it hit him like a kick in the zipper by a mule. Sometimes when you have been out in the field for some time, you just have to go and go real damn soon like now. Or you're going to have a load in your shorts that you and any of your nearby friends would not like very much. The stress was starting to be getting a little bit lower, and the end of the mission was now in sight. Which now was the point, when Rex's body betrayed him in the most biological way. The Scout made his way a little ways farther, but he could not delay what needed to be done much longer. He waited only long enough so that he could have a hard terrain feature between him, and the metal men while he was total exposed, literally totally exposed. He was soon scraping a hole in the ground and putting a powered substance in place. This powered would kick start the breakdown of his soon to deposit item into fertile soil. With that done he put the e-tool down, and went to quickly undoing his warm cloths by layer. He was so focused on what he needed to do, that he forgot the golden rule of being a scout. You always have to keep an eye, and an ear out for what is going on around you. AT ALL TIMES! No matter what you were doing! He had not been doing that and he now was going to pay for it.

Cylon Centurion Number 15642 was moving slowly and quietly through the woods looking for humans as it had been tasked to do. If he had been human, he would have been called disgruntled or just plain mad about his current mission. This was the sixth New Model Centurion body that 15642 had been put in, since the day he remembered coming on line for the very first time six yarns ago. The end of his first body came at the beginning of the new war on the Humans, in fact it had been on the very first day of combat. It had lost its first body, when it had boarded a tramp freighter in the middle of nowhere of all things. There had not been any major issues with this boarding, until i15642 was going after a micro human at the end of the operation. The little meat bag was fast had used its knowledge of the ship and small sized to its advantage. Then 15642 had finally cornered it, only to have a thick hatch metal come down between it and its cornered prey. When the personnel hatch had closed, the main cargo hatch had opened only a half of a second later. 15642 was sucked out into the deep cold of space, before the CPU could understand what was happening or how to stop it Centurions were tough, but they were not design to work in that kind of environment, for long periods of time. At least without a lot special support and per-planning. 15642 did not know what had "killed" it after it had been blown out into deep space. It was a tossup between the deep cold that far from the heat of a massive star, or if its internal battery had given out first. Both could have "killed" it, but it was close enough to a resurrection ship to be saved and put back into services of the cylon race.

It had only been in service again for a few hours, when its second body had failed. This time it had been in a Heavy Raider during a battle around a nebula called the Ragnar Anchorage. Their something big and fast moving, had destroyed the clyon transport, and all of the Centurions inside of it in a flash of energy and heat. It had happened so fast that did not know what had happened to it. 15642 was smart enough not to ask on of the human forms about what had killed it. It was just "happy" that it would have a new body to do the bidding of the cylon. It was not until later that it "noticed" something was different after that down load.

It had lost its third body while hunting the humans hiding in the wilds of Sagittaron. It and a group of five other Centurions, had been on patrol like they had done a hundred times before. This time they had been destroyed in a classic ambush, which wiped out all of the metal Centurions in his group in seconds of weapons fire. As soon as it was pulled out again from the goo, and the human forms had dismissed it. 15642 found out that it was looking forward to killing humans and not because of how it had been programed.

Not long after was pulled out of the goo again and reinstalled in a new body, it was sent to Caprica to replace combat loses fighting the humans still hiding on that wrecked world. It was able to use what it had learned and remembered on Sagittron, to fight the human's fighter here on this new planet. It had done very well in that war zone, but it still had lost two more bodies there in woods to the human fighters. The first one was to another ambush where it had taken three shots from one of the few Colonial service rifle to its center chest. They must have been using armor-piercing rounds, and or high explosive rounds. That was because they had blown out its entire center chest from front to back with just three impacts. 15642 had been able to kill two of the meat bags before, it too had been destroyed, but those were the only two humans killed in the attack. For those human losses, six Centurions had been removed from action, but only temporally.

The second body it lost on Caprica, was when it had been the point machine of a search and destroy task group in a high threat area. That group had been made up of over fifty combat machines lead by five of the weak human copies. The mission was going very well, at first. They had captured alive and barely hurt twenty breading female humans and six micro humans of the right gender. It did not know why they had been ordered to keep certain types of human alive, but orders were orders. On the second week of his assault, 15642 had been thinking that when dealing with humans. "If they were quite or your mission was going well? Then you were about to have trouble that could range from small to truly massive in scale." The main possessor in 15642's head had just completed that assessment, and was about to pass it to cylon hybrid that was high over Caprica. That was when gunfire erupted all around it and it was too late to send the alert.

None of the fire seemed to be aimed at itself, so it increased speed to the closest sound of gunfire. It was almost to the probable area of conflict. This was here it could engage any humans, its logic core had already determine he would be targeting Colonial troopers. When it reached the center of the threat area, it came across a body of a Type 5 lying on the ground leaking red blood from a single large hole. 15642 used a little needed medical scanning system to assess the health of the human form cylon spread out on the ground. I quickly determined that the Type 5 human form had died do to a major loss of oxygen carrying blood, that its body needed to function. The wound in the center chest, that had caused the major blood lose. Appeared to be a large caliber hunting round of some kind, which had blown the 5's fragile heart out of the back of the human formed Cylon. Centurion 15642 had to stop to do the scan the local area to update its decision matrixes. It was only at rest for a hand full of seconds, before starting to move again at its top speed again. It had to make a 60 degree turn to head to the next area that seemed to be in conflict.

It had traveled about a dozen long strides, before 15642t found itself falling down in to a dark hole. It came to a stop with a grown of metal on hard and unforgiving metal It was now in what 15642 would have called pain, a dozen feet below the surface soil. When the one eyed football shaped head looked down deeper into the hole. It could see a pointed metal rods about 6 inches in diameter around it, and one was sticking 3 foot out of its chest. When it moved its feet and legs, both moved freely with a range of motion that they should without causing any "pain" or additional damage. They could strike the dirt sides of the hole, but it could not reach the bottom of the pit. 15642's head mounted audio pick up and registered movement from above him. But when it turned its red single eye up to the mouth of the pit again. It was not another Cylon looking down at it. It was four humans with hand held weapons but not anything that looked like a military grade weapon. For the first time 15642 was hoping that it was wrong. The humans did not use military grade ammunition but hunting rounds instead, when they fired into the dark hole holding the impaled metal Cylon. The lower penetration ability of the civilian ammunition could still kill a Cylon Centurion, if you had enough of them. It was a death of a thousand cuts, as the humans put round after round into it. Until the osculating red eye finally went dark and it stopped moving in the hole.

When it had come out of the goo the last time, it had made a mental promise that it would never do that again. It felt like it lost some part of itself, every time it came out of that mess now that it knew what it was. It did not trust that it would come out again, anywhere close to whole as 15642 thought of itself, now that it knew what 15642 was. It had felt something like joy, when it was ordered to board a Heavy Raider scheduled to lift off planet. 15642 had been directed, because a cylon could not be "ordered" around like a slave, to be taken to one of the Baseships, which were still hunting the last human warship. It did not even mind that he would be shut down for most of the trip, in that they called "sleep mode".

It took months of traveling, but now here it was on another planet again, but at least this time he did not have to hunt the humans down. It only keep them in small groups, and keep them from running into wet wood line. It seemed to be a very simple mission but it was very dull even for a Centurion. The humans had been to quiet, and things were going according to the plan that 15642 had been given. Well, at least the primary plan that had been uploaded arrival to this systems. This meant that 15642 was on edge, and was looking for something to happen that might cause him to be down loaded into a new body. It had found and what experience, had shown it. Should be a good spot to be in, If a human was going to try to leave the work detail area. It had not moved for some time, it was a small, dull chrome colored tree in this old forest. It was just a shorter one than the rest, and it just happened to be made of metal. That was when a slight sound registered on its audio picks up, of maybe clothes rubbing against something like a tree or rock. It was just loud enough and lasted long enough. For 15642 to figure out that it was coming from behind, and to the left of a small nub of rock a few feet away for its current static location.

15642 used all the skills it had learned, from hunting human fighters, to make its way quietly to where the sound had come from. When it was close enough. It used two quick strides to clear the small nub of rock, and turned to face into the sound. It was supposed to collect and not kill any escapees. 15642 only had its claw like hands deployed, to intimidate the human runaway to comply with the cylon directives. What its optical scanner detected was an odd bush like thing, which was 5 foot 9.5 inches tall. It was complete with some kind of heat source between its two leaf covered trunks. 15642 knew something was wrong, but its computer was still working on the logic of the problem. Before it could even know what to do in this very odd and not programed event. A white ball of lighting jumped from the midway down the right side of the bush, and impacted 15642 square in its broad chest. A second ball of lighting soon jumped from the right side of bush to the metal man, but it was not needed to stop the Centurion.

The first energy shot hit with so much force, that it rocked the metal war-machine on to its two metal heals. It was close, but did not put the machine onto its back. The Ion energy blast from the bush blasted into the machine had a psychical property and it had a secondary affect. The ION blast started to send waves of uncontrolled energy surges coursing through the conductive parts of the internal workings of the Centurion. It was latterly frying the Centurion from the insides out. Just as the second round of white lighting was hitting the machine, the surge from the first hit had arrived at something important. It was the main controls that would have transmitted the operating software to the nearest Resurrection chamber, so that it could be put in a new body. 15642 simply stopped working and turned into a hunk of metal and ceramic rooted to the ground. 15642 would not have to worry about braking its self-imposed promise to not be sent into the goo ever again.

A Centurion was hardened to withstand electromagnetic pulse or blast while it was standing almost in the heat blast radius of a 50 megaton bomb. That is not the crater zone, but the heat blast zone of the weapon. That level of an energy spike from a city killer? Was like an AA battery, compared to what the Ion pistol had delivered to the Centurion in one shot and a microsecond. That was not even counting the second ION blast, the bush had snapped shot into now not moving Centurion Number 15642.

Rex's hand was shaking so hard that his elbow started to send pain impulses to his brain. He had been caught with his paints, literally down around his ankles. He has just been lucky, that he had a habit of pulling his heavy pistol out of its hip holster while he was taking care of biologic business. The weight of the heavy weapons tended to pull your paints down awkwardly. After one smelly cleanup, he had started working on ways to avoid the mess. He now had developed a habit holding onto the thing, in his right or shooting hand. When the bullet headed Cylons turned around the rock outcropping and looked right at him. Rex about had a heart attack, and his muscle memory took over for his shut down brain. He would later tell everyone, that he did not remember firing the first blast into the chrome beast. He had thought about the second shot, and placed it center mass of the metal machine. Just like a trained sharpshooter should do.

Rex was now done doing his business, which tends to happen when an enemy get the drop on you like that. It has a way of clearing your bowel out, very quickly and totally. Either that or you will pass a diamond when you finally go next. Rex walked over to the pile of metal that had been a war-machine a few seconds before, and he put one more shot into it just to make sure. Okay, it was to vent a little bit of spleen on what had gotten the drop on him. This time it was place right into glass like area, where the red light had come from. It had faded away by the time Rex was standing over it, but the image was ingrained into his brain forever. Now sure that the machine was not going to be getting up anytime soon. Rex cleaned himself and covered the hole with another layer of powered and rain wet dirt. He took some images of the damage to the machine using a pocket camera, then covered any sign that he had been there. The homemade powered had turned his deposit into nothing but more damp dirt, less than an hour later. It would look that way even to systems that had been brought to this cold world by the underwater rift. There was no sign that Rex had been there, or that he had been the one to shoot the Centurion less than ninety minutes after it had happened.

Rex was moving at almost at a fast walk, to get away from the down machine and the local area as safely as he could. The only thing that was slowing him down, was the need and his drive that he must be stealthy. Thankfully he made it to his hover cycle without running into any more trouble. It did not take long from him to pull the hover cycle out of its hiding spot and fire it up. He piloted his cycle down a per-planned path that started at a nearby creek. This would keeping him under the trees, until it met up with another but larger creek. This one creek bed, he took all the way to his meeting point, complete with some back up in the firepower department. They did not want to risk the two support sites to any threat yet, so a third point had been set up. Three armed troopers in heavy body armor and weapons were set up in an over-watch position. Rex had helped in setting up before he went on this mission leg of the mission. If no one fallowed him to that point, than he would be allowed to make the rest of the trip to the forward camp. The guard force would stay in place just in case something showed up later. They had their own rules of engagement, which Rex would be very happy that had no idea about.

Meanwhile back at the wood cutting detail. Duck had finished helping hook up the tree trunk to the back of truck that he had dropped. A second tree that someone else had dropped while he was working on his tree was also attached to the towing points. The small computer attached to Duck's chest was visibly affecting how he could move and how he was working. When one of the crew asked what was wrong with him, he told them that he pulled something when he dropped his tree. Since it was the first tree to come down that day, everyone let him slack off and covered for him from the cylons. When it was time to leave the now a little larger clearing. His fellow wood cutter, had made sure that he was able to ride upfront in the heated cab for the trip back to his home. This was helpful and on this trip, like the last one. A human form had not been out with them, so he did not to share the cab with a cylon. This was a very good thing, Duck was having a harder and harder time keeping the package he was carrying under wraps. The sitting and not moving was make it worse every minute. It was only the military training that kept him from showing his fellow Colonial the package under his outer coat.

Tucker's pregnant wife was waiting on the wood cutting detail truck, when they got back inside the now prison camp for the humans. She showed concern because of how he was walking towards her, and that he had been riding in the cab. Normally he would have been riding in the back of the cargo truck, with his friends and the fresh cut limbs. His home would get a portion of the wood they brought back, it did not matter if he had drop a tree or not. As long as some wood was brought back to the camp as a whole, everyone on the detail would get some of the limited supply of fuel they brought back. It was how they had worked out the details of the group when they had finally been allowed by the cylons to resupply the heating fuel.

Another group of Colonials would take care of making sure everyone got what they were supposed to, it was not the tired cutters problem divvying it up. At least they would be able to use the power tools that they cylons had not allowed to leave the camp. Duck could see the concern in his wife's eyes as he walked up to her. Tucker leaned down, and kissed the love of his life, and told her that. He needed to check on a few things before coming home to her arms again. She was not happy with the notification from her husband, and she picked up on the tone of voice her husband was using. She trusted her ex-viper pilot husband, not to get in over his head now that a little one was on the way. He was up to something, and she knew that he would tell her about it as soon as he felt like he could. She was also ex-military, so she could keep her mouth shut for as long as she needed to. She would not hold out forever, but she could hold things down for a while. Then she would start to dig, if she had the feeling that her family might be at risk.

Duck was walking down the muddy streets until he got to the school's tent some distance away from the center of the camp were the wood cutting detail had returned to. He was waiting for some chrome dome to stop him, but none of them seemed to be around at the moment. Duck could feel the sweat running down his spine. After stopping at the half open tent flap and looking first right then left. He did not see anything out of place, but he did a second round of looking anyway just to be sure. Then he took a deep breath and entered the one room tent school, which the ex-president of the 12 Colonies had set up almost on the first day that she had landed on this mud ball. She was not the type of person, who could sit around and do nothing. Now that she did not have the job as the leader, of what was left of the human race to deal with. She had went back to the job she loved, teaching kids of all ages. When Duck entered the medium sized tent. He saw a brown hair woman with eye glasses reading and showing pictures to a group of 7 and 8 yarn old kids spread out around her feet. Duck took a chair that was far enough back from the group, as not to disturb the reading class and waited. He was thinking that if he was fallowed, this delay would be helpful. It would give the cylons more time to bust in, and not catch them doing anything. That would get them picked up and taking away to a prison cell somewhere. He was trying his best to look like he was supposed to be there, just another parent watching their kids. He had no idea that he was failing miserably.

Laura Roslin looked up when a figure entered and moved the tent flap of her school, and noticed a Viper jock that she sort of knew enter her domain. She did not know him that well, so she just kept on going along with her class. He could wait until she had finished what she had planned for the kids to have done for the day. When she had completed the story book, she sent the kids to the sides of the tent to work on small projects like drawing and coloring that would let their brains recharge. When she stated to raise from her chair, so did the awkwardly waiting Viper pilot. When Laura stared to rise she felt a few old friends in the pain department come to visit, again. "I'm getting to old for this, and this dampness is not helping at fraking all." She thought to herself, but she let her right hand going around to the small of her back to provide some relieving pressure. This told anyone of age, what she had been thinking with a word being said. She made eye contact again with the young man, and she could see that he pulled himself up straighter as he got closer to her. When it was polite to speak, she decided to be the one to break the ice. "I don't remember you name, but you were a Viper Pilot on Galactica right? Laura directed the question at the man, she did not have to use "the Look" or "the voice" to get a replay. It still had ability command to those around the camp. Well to all but those who were sucking up to that Fraker Baltar anyway. Luckily there were only a few dozen of those and getting fewer in number as the cylons settling in.

Duck smiled at the older woman, and was thinking the Gods that his wife was not around. She was the jealous type even, if his woman close to twice his age. She still had looks, and the "something" that could hit a man below the belt line. "Yes Mrs. President that's right. I was called Duck, when I still had a stick in my hand and strapping on a Viper." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted one of them as soon has he heard himself say it and he tried to recover. "But I need to talk to you in private, I think it's important. Very important." He was looking around tent nervously, and at all of the little ones around the "Room" that was the only school in the camp. He had pitched his tone lower as he looked around the child lined tent. "It might get ugly if the landlords find out."

Lora was picking up something in the under lying tone, but she was not understanding why it was there. "That's right Duck, I remember now. One of these days you will have to tell me how you got that nickname." She gave the younger man a wink. How someone got a handle or nickname was a very personnel story and not sheared with just anyone, unless lots of ambrosia was being passed around. "You know I have not been the President for some time now. It's Laura from now on if you please." She waved her hand and arm round pointing out a few of the children. "Duck I don't think any of them are Cylons or will report back to them. They are going to be here for another hour, so do you wait?" She was keeping the tone light. She was hoping this was not a going to be the start of another marriage counseling session. She had no idea about the bombshell waiting to be set off, not ten feet from where she was standing. Years later she would reflect on this little meeting that would change everyone's lives so dramatically, and how it had started so subtlety.

Duck was getting a little more flustered and he did not know how to get on to the track he needed her to be on. "Ma'am you will always be the President to me, and a lot others. Not that Gods damn coward, who is sitting at your desk now. I also think that we need to have Colonel Tigh in here for this, and the kids should be somewhere else." He shot her a look and tilted his head down towards his shoes. "While we have a talk, and have a little show and tell." He leaned a little closer and tapped his chest to focus her look and pitched his voice a little too low for comfort. "I was on cutting wood detail today, and I had a little run in with "someone" out there." Duck knew that she would think that he had a run with someone that had been away from New Caprica. When the Cylons landed, or had been able to sneak away afterwards. He had to fight a sinker at the look he was being given by Laura. "Gods will she be surprised, with what he had hidden under his coat." He could not help but let a sly smile cross his face as the last thought raced through his brain. It was that smile that got Lora's attention, like a lightning bolt from Zeus. Duck did not have a poker face, and she could tell that he thought it was a block buster bit of information he wanted to share with her and Saul.

Laura looked at the young man and her eyes narrowed a bit, then called out to one of the older kids that was helping out with the younger ones. "John will you do me a big favor and get Colonel Tigh for me. Just tell him, that I need to talk to him right now! You and also tell him, from me. That I don't care how he feels, get his old dirty behind over here." The little boy was at that narrow age when all they want to do is please their teacher, so he just nodded his head at the instructions he had been given. Soon he shot out of the tent like a burst from a Vipers wing gun. She looked around the tent at all of the young eyes looking at her. "Now for the rest of you let's finish up your projects." She walked around the tent, leaving Duck at the front of the class area. It was about ten minutes later that Laura stopped again and this time she raised her voice to carry to every ear in the tent. "Why don't you all go to the green house and see if you can play in the dirt." The two adults in the tent were about run over by the herd of wild daggets on a rampage to get out and get dirty.

The last and older kid had just left the tent and the crusty old Colonel, who only looked to be having only a mild hangover to deal with today, entered the school tent. The tent flap was not even closed behind him. When he started bellowing at the only two people now left in the tent/school. "What in the Gods name is so FRAKING important! That I cannot finish testing my latest run from my still?" Most people were surprised that he had not gone blind, or have some other bodily shut down. Due to his testing of his still that made the barley drinkable entertainment. Of the three stills known to be in production in New Caprica, Saul Tigh's was considered to have the worse output by far of any of them.

Laura went into political mode without any thought, and started to defuse the volatile bald man on the warpath. It would be about ten minutes of her life that she would not get back, but finally she was able to get down to business. "Well Saul. It seems like our ex-Viper pilot, here." She pointed to Duck before starting up again. Saul was not known for his multi-tasking skills, when hung-over. "He did a little more than help cut some wood, to help keep us warm for the next day or two on his last trip out from New Caprica." While she was talking she was also leading the older warhorse to a table set for four adults. It was the farthest from the tent opening to the outside world.

Now Saul was seated and with a glass of water in hand, but not the drink he had in mind in front of him. Saul looked at the other man as he took a seat. "Well Lt, don't keep me waiting, what the frak happened out there? If you tell me you found a new type of tree out there. I might use your body to heat my still on my next run."

Duck, now sitting at the wooden table, and put his hands flat on the table. He was using the per-debriefing technique, he had been trained to use back in flight school. He started from the beginning, and tried not to leaving anything out as he retold the pair what had happen to him earlier that day. Normally he would have been able to go all the way threw his story one complete time, before being asked any questions from those listening to his back brief. That did not happen this time, not by a long shot. But the Colonel was a military man for more years than you really want to know, so he could get Duck back on track. That is after Saul had to stop Duck to explain something in more detail, to the satisfaction of the other two people at the table that had not been with him.

Roslin was stunned by what she had been hearing from a man, who she could tell was believing every word that had fallen out of his mouth. She was still keeping her voice low and level, but it was not easy for her to do this. And it was only getting harder for her to control it, as she asked for some clarification of this wild and unbelievable story. She shot a look to Saul, but for the most part she was focused on Duck. "What do you mean it was a human bush, Duck?"

Duck stop with the story telling, and back tracked to the point she was refer to. "What I mean, is that one second it looked like a very real bush and rock ten feet from me. The next time I look in that direction. The bush part of the rock had a face complete with eyes brows, pink lips and very white teeth. After we were done with our exchange, and when I looked away. It was a bush again, sliding slowly as can be out of line of sight to me." He shrugged his strong shoulders in what was called the Military Intelligence salute. "I don't know a better way to explain it Ma, am. Maybe someone with more ground combat experience might have been better explanation or description of what it was. That is what it looked like to me. "

Saul Tigh was quiet and his eyebrows were almost touching over his eyes and nose. It was not normal for him to be quite, then you had to add the deep frown on his pasty white and gray face. He moved his lips some, like he might be chewing on them for some reason. "You said that the covering was a fake. Like maybe it was made of color cloth, and his face was painted to match the rocks and plants that were near you." Saul leaned forward a little and he seemed to want to pull the information right out of Duck's brain. "Are you sure about that? I mean are you really sure about that."

Roslin looked across the table at the old military man, and tried to read his mind to fallow were he might be going with that line of questioning. She quickly gave up, and just asked the Colonel. "What are you thinking Saul? Do you know who they might be? Is this something that the hijackers have used against the Colonial Military before the cylons came back to send us to Hades?"

Saul looked down at his glass of water, and shook his head side to side. He did not do the head moving with a lot of energy, it was more like he was trying to clear out the cobwebs of age. "Damn, you got anything real to drink around this Fraking place?" When Rolsin just looked at him, and then slowly raised an eyebrow of her own at him. He dropped the request, for now and gave a reply to her questions. "I was not thinking about any gang or criminals, Laura that kind of thing was only for entertainment shows. The way he described them to us. Well it reminds me of a unit that worked behind the lines, oh back sometime in the First Cylon War. They would be dropped off, or left behind on a planet, when our combat lines were pushed back on us. They would get left out there alone for a long time, maybe a year. I think it could have been more, maybe years. They had these Ranger suits, which I saw one time on display. That made it so that they could disappear in a snow field, just like what Duck said about the back ground rocks and bushes. But it's the face painting thing that is throwing me off. I remember someone talking about them doing something like, that but I just don't know. Maybe I lost too many brain cells over the years."

Laure's jaw was swung open and seemed almost to hit the wooden topped table. "So do you think they might be a Colonial military unit? Do you think, they might be from the 1st Cylon War, or do you think they might have been on the run like us from the cylons?" Laura was asking some very good questions, but they were to rapid fire for the half hung-over Saul to work through all at once. It was like he was being hit by a professional boxer repeatedly in the head.

Duck stepped in again to put out information he had said once before, but this pair might not have grabst, yet. "They are not Colonial, I can tell you that one for fraking free. When he or she said something to me, that one time. It was like nothing I have ever heard before in my Fraking life. I don't know if you know Colonel Tigh, but I have been to all of the planets and over a dozen different independent stations before the cylons attack. I know a lot about how people talk, because of the way I grew up. The person I meet has not been near the 12 worlds in a long time, if their way of speaking has shifted that much. I'm not an expert, but that is what I think." Duck stopped talking abruptly and his ears turned a little red.

Roslin let out a loud breath and deflated somewhat and slumped a little in the high backed hand built wooden chairs. She was drawing up more questions instead of getting any answers that she wanted. "Okay you said that he or it made some king of hand signs before it left. That made you think meant, that they wanted to meet back near the trees of the wood lot in three days. How do you think we can pull that off?" She looked first at Saul and then the young ex-Viper jock on the other side of the table from her. She was wishing again that Bill Adama was there, he would know what to do. He always had in the past.

Duck was wonder how he was going to cover the next part of his story. He looked up at the tent fabric top and quickly decided to go for broke. "Time to put the nuk on the table." Was the thought that was running threw his mind, but now he could not keep the grin off his face when he looked back down at the rest of the little group. "Yes Mrs. President that was when they passed me this little present." Duck quickly opened his over coat and unstrapped the computer like device that had been hiding there most of the day. When the 12 inch by 22 inch plastic and metal device hit the table with a soft thud, and their eyes now where focused on it as the device sat on the table like a pair of Battlestar gun turrets.

While the two leaders were steering at what he had dropped on the table, Duck reached into his outer coat pocket and pulled out the paper package. "They also gave me this." He placed the cream colored package on top of the computer with a little sly showmanship. "I haven't had any piracy to open it yet, so I have no idea what's inside. But its killing me not knowing what's inside." Duck gave a slight shutter and looked at the pair across the table from him. "I was sure that one of the cylons would notice I was carrying, and they would have gun me down to see what it was." He looked around the table and he noticed that they were looking at the two items on the table, like they were Death Viper's or something else that might blowup in their faces. Duck was not sure, he did not disagree with the looks from Saul and Laura were giving the two items.

Roslin caught the glances and gave herself a little shake. She then reached for the cream colored package first. Saul was fighting an urge to bolt for the tent exit, when she picked up the paper. It was a waxed paper of some kind she thought, as she was examining the odd shaped package from all sides. There was a slightly darker cream color arrow that ran that ran from a long side to midway down the narrow part. She would not have known it, but the package was just a simple business sized mailing envelope made old Rifts Earth. She was able to put a slim finger in a small gap and the effort of pushing slightly of her finger was rewarded. The package opened along the arrow shaped mark with ease. The now triangle shape opened and let her see the insides of the package. With a slightly shaking hand, she pulled out the snow white pages of parchment the outer covering was protecting. The outer slick feeling paper had protected the inner sheets from water and weather.

The two other men were looking at her as she unfolded what they soon found out were three white pages of some kind of paper. They were perfect rectangles 11inch long x 8 inches wide, a bright white with black ink marring the perfect color. It was strange to her that he corners were not cut on the page, it looked cheap or incomplete to her eyes. However the black ink writing on the pages quickly drew her eyes away from the shape of the paper. Her fingers slipped a little and now realized that it was three sheets of very thin paper not one thickish page. She put the three pages on the flat on the table top, for everyone to see and compare. The first page was complete gibberish of black ink markings from top to bottom of the white sheet.

The black printed letters were for the most part completely different, than what she as a school teacher knew how to use. She passed the almost alien written paper around the table first. The second page was again unreadable to her, but at least she could make out maybe one in fifty words. She was about to pass it along, but she looked at the next and last page of the three pages. The third page was written in a familiar script, but still was not readable. It looked a lot like some of the ancient Kobalian she had seen in some of the oldest scrolls. On some kind of instinct she compared the last two pages together. They were the same length, and spacing of the word groups was almost exactly the same. She tried to read the third page, but it was a jumbled mess to her. She was remembering that she did not get that much sleep the night before and it had been a long day already.

She sat the two pages side by side and flat on the small wooden table. While she was looking down she held out her right hand. "Please pass the first page." Duck whom had the first page, passed it to the ex-leader of the last bit of the human race. Roslin took the first page and laid it beside the other two pages. The two men were quiet, both knew that she was book smarter than both of them put together. The two men waited for a few more minutes, before they would even think about asking what was going through her head. Before the two men's mental clock had finished counting down. Laura spun the pages, so that they all were facing the same way and then pointed to them. She went into teaching mode without a second thought. "I think this is the same letter, but written in three different languages." She pointed to a different area on each page. "Look at the spacing here, here, here. I think they are trying to get the same idea across, but they don't know for sure how to get the idea across to us. I would bet one of them is their own preferred language. It might be a codex of some kind, to help us work out how to communicate." She lifted one eye brow and gave a slight negative shake of her head. Something like this would be a huge task for a major center of education on Caprica, much less what the Colonials had access to now. She had no idea how they were going to do it with what remained not under cylon control. "Looks like Duck might be right Saul, and they have not been near our space for a very long time."

Tigh was rubbing his bold head with one hand, and he did not say anything for a few long seconds. Something was not making since and after a few more seconds he was able to bring the idea to his mouth. "We over flew the whole planet when we got here, and we did not see anyone. So where did they come from? And why are they just now saying hi to us? We have been dirt side for what? Over a year now." He started shaking his head from side to side as he talked, adding more energy to the head movement as he spoke. "Something just does not add up. Why now, and why this way now? It's a cylon game of some kind, mark my fraking words. It's a cylon playing games with us. I can see the model ones finger prints all over this." Saul dropped his hand from his head and snake quick turned his body around to see if anyone was coming through the tent flap to take them again.

Duck was not listing to the old drunk right then, it was a soft buzzing sound in back of Duck's mind. He even was not looking the three white pages on the table anymore. He had noticed four red arrows pointing to one button on the computer like device on the wooden table top. Without his fore-brain realizing it, he reached over and pushed it. It was a Viper pilot thing, because not one person trained as a pilot could resist, not pushing buttons when they saw one. It was almost pathological, and many a Colonial Doctor would testify under oath. That the first real test of a Viper pilot, was just living through the hot stove top phase of a young person's life.

Colonel Tigh saw the Viper pilot's hand reach across the table, but his alcohol abused brain did not register what exactly ex pilot might be doing. That is until it was too late to stop Duck from doing it. The pilots hand was already on the way back, to his side of the table. When the metal and plastic box went nuts on the table top. Everyone seated at the table almost jumped out of their seats when the box started to move and shift around like some kind of a cylon coming up for air.

The top ¼ inch of the square mass popped open like a book of matches and locked into place with an audible click and stopped moving. Then a part, about in inch thick on two different sides of the four sides of the device, quickly slide away from the exposing the center of the odd little device. It was increasing the foot print that the device need on either side of the original device by about six inches on each side of two sides. The machine was again quiet, both in sound and movement and now it was just sitting on the wooden table top. The three people were watching the device, to see it was going to attack them, or blow up the whole planet or not. When their heart rates slowed down again, Roslin leaned forward and pulled at a slip of plastic covered paper that seemed to be in a built in pocket made to hold it. The pocket was only exposed when the device had opened. There were again three pages, but they did not have any writing on them. They had what looked to be stick figures working with a box that looked a lot like the one in front of them. Laura laid them out just like she had done with the white sheets. Now everyone around the table could have a clear look at the three new sheets of almost paper. She looked at the younger ex-military man with a very level gaze, and let just a hint of warning color the tone of her voice she started to use. "Duck would pleas re-frame from touching anything, until after we all talk about it first. I don't know how many years of my life, I just lost but I don't have that many left before today." Her voice was now sweet, but with only a touch of bite behind them in the end statement.

Duck took the hint quickly that was coming from the ex-president of the 12 Colonies of Kobal. He was now physically sitting on his hands, and turning a few shades of red in embarrassment. Colonel Tigh reached over and pickup up one of the three stiff sheets what might have been plastic covered rectangle shaped paper, with the pictographs printed on both sides of the slick feeling paper. He flipped it over and over looking at each set of stick figures, from as many angles as he could think of. He was not looking any anyone around the table, as he spoke. "Do you think this fraking things are directions, on how to us this piece of junk?" He now was moving his head to add a few more variations to the angles he had used before, looking at the pages that were completely baffling to him.

All three of them stood up and started reviewing the pages with Saul's idea in mind. For the next half hour, they tried to work out how to get the machine to do, whatever it had been designed to do for them. It did not help that the three people in this tent, had no idea what it was meant to do in the first place. They could have spent longer working on the diversion, but a young semi guided weapon, of a running child streaked into the tent covered school. It was talking at full volume as it cleared the fabric flap covered entrance way. The three people turned as one and blocked view of what was on the table from the new set of eyes.

"Colonel Tigh, Colonel Tigh! Your wife wants you home right now! The chrome domes said they are locking down camp early tonight! And she said to get home, but bring something that is descent to drink!" The little girl probably did not know what she was saying, but only repeating what she had been told verbatim to who she had been told to say it to. Now all she had to do was run back to the Colonel's wife, and she would get her promised sweat treat. She was already in a power turn to bring her back in alignment with the tent opening as she finished bellowing her message.

The blur of the child was already out the tent flap before they could say a word in reply. The ex-president looked at the other two people in the tent and tilted her head to one side and a little bit of sweat formed on her forehead. "That does not sound good." She checked her watch and kept talking "Curfew is not for another three hours. Something must be up, I wonder what happened. Why don't you two go back to your families? I can work on this on my own tonight. It's not like I have a lot to do to past the time when the kids are gone." She had a sad smile on her face, this time because she was thinking about Bill Adama again. She had no idea whether are not he was alive or part of an expanding bit of a gas cloud, which had once been his beloved ship. The Cylons had "said" that they had blasted apart all of the ships that had tried to escape. This was in conflict from what she had heard around the camp. A few of the ex-military on the ground, had said that they had seen ships jump out of the system. There was no way to know who those ships had been, or if they lived to see the end of the jump, they had to make on short notice.

Colonel Tigh was not happy about the idea of leaving just yet, but he did not want to give the Chrome jobs more reasons to keep him under close observation than he had to. He also needed to work on the "Basement" some more tonight anyway. He had to agree, that he had better get moving back to his little shack a few rows of grounded space ships over. He remembered that the cylons were spending a lot of time around his place lately. This was not that much of a surprise to anyone in the mud lane camp. He after all, had been the second highest military rank person in the refugee fleet and the highest military person the cylons got their hands on when they had landed. That meant that he had helped kill a good number of cylons before. The fleeing remaining Colonials had landed on this cold, mud ball of a planet hidden in a nebula.

Saul gave a head nod in agreement and looked over at Roslin. "You're probably right Roslin. Duck let's leave the school teacher to her puzzle, in what peace we have left." He was giving Roslin a smile, so it was not a verbal jab at her, it was just the gas bag being an old gas bag as usual. "How about I stop back by after my morning search by the cylons. The more eyes we have on this, maybe the faster we can get this thing to work after a good night's sleep I just don't think we should have too many people know about it yet." He stopped Duck dead in his tracks with a snake quick grab of younger man's arm, before he could go out the tent flap. "This is your cover story Duck. You were just talking to Roslin about what the right age for teaching kids contain things. That is when you wife asks about what you were up to, when you get back home tonight." Saul was in full battlestar XO mode, something he had not used in years, but ti felt good to the older man to be doing again.

Duck looked at the man and back to Roslin with a blank look, then started to slowly nod his head up and down. "Yes sir, we were talking about goals we should be looking at for the kid at different ages. Got it. I was planning on putting my name down again for wood cutting detail again. Let me know if I can help out, with anything." He was not smiling but he also was not frowning. He had just a thin lipped look as he talked to the two of the most powerful Colonial people in the camp.

Roslin smiled at the younger man, still standing in the tent opening. "I think that it would be a good idea. I don't think you just happened to walk up on our new friend hiding in the woods. They knew someone would be close to that location. They were waiting for you, Duck. Or someone else to stop by that tree, you were working on. Now these strangers know your face Duck. I bet it would save us more than a few problems, if you stay on the detail for the near future. Let me or the Colonel know, if we can do anything to make sure you're on those details." Roslin was pointing to the closed tent flap. "Now if you would now go, before the cylons pick you both up again, and have one of those long talks we oooh so fraking love." The two men were out to flap and into the cold damp early evening air, as her words faded away behind the flapping closed then entrance.

Laura was alone again in the cold, gloomy tent. This was the hardest time of day for her. Now that she could not even hope, that Bill would stop by to spend some time with her. She walked by the side tables with the latest creations of her little ones were on proud display. Some of the art work was good, most likely done by one of the older kids. She was checking out some of the work done by her two youngest, and stopped dead in her tracks. She looked more closely at a pair of pages, then picked up the drawings. With the two pages, he hurried back to the table the three adults had been working on this afternoon. She spread the three slick plastic covered pages out and again. She was still wondering what TRIAX was, since that word was printed on the top and bottom of each of the plastic covered pages. She then put the two items that the kids had made during the day flat on the wooden table top. She went back in forth between the two different types of items spread out on the homemade wood table. She remembered an old saying from when she first started teaching, all those long decades ago. It had come from a teacher that was almost at the age of mandatory retirement. The saying was something like. "From the mouths of babes, the true will fall from and guide those of age. But only if they will listen to those words." Laura had thought the old bat had lost her mind when she had spoken those words. Now she was not too sure who was crazy one, now.

She picked up a thick cut cornered book that was setting on the table, which she had been reading the last few nights to help speed the cold nights along. She looked down at the glossy pages. And then taking a lead from the strange rectangle sheet, place the book with a page of texts exposed under one of the sides that had slid out. When she put the book under that side, like the image suggested. A blue light briefly bathed the cut cornered page in the book in its odd shade of light. The flat panel that had popped up when it had open had changed. Now displayed the page she had been reading is so sharp detailed, that faint stains on the page was clearly visible on the displaying screen. It was a perfect image of the page, but one or two words were highlighted in yellow. But the rest of the text was the same black text, just like the book had been when the blue light had walked down the page. She looked back at one of the drawings. The little one had drawn what she had labeled as Colonel Tigh with curlicue bars coming out of his mouth. She looked back at the plastic pages and one of the stick figures had a book in their hand and bars coming out of the mouth area also. "Well I guess I'm supposed to read the page out loud." She said to herself.

She pulled the book back out from under the blue light giving device, and started to read. While she was reading, she kept one eye watching the machine at the same time. As she read the words turned from back to yellow, but if the same word was farther down the page, it would have a yellow dotted box around it until she got to at word again. When the first page was done, she put the book under the side and the exposed two pages of text to the blue light. A second or so later the two pages were now displayed on the popup screen. This time she picked up a cup of hot local made tea from her living area of the tent before returning to her chair. She settled in to finish scanning and reading the book out loud to strange electronic object on her work desk.

 **Colonial One**

Gaius Baltar was just getting to the good stuff with the two young and very good looking women, that had somehow escaped his notice on the run from there burnt out home worlds. That was until four cylon Centurions stormed onto the grounded ship that was both his home and his office. The cylons went straight back to the office/bedroom/adult play room of the President of the 12 Worlds of Kobal. When Baltar looked up at the looming metal war-machines, they were looking back down at his half-dressed body splayed out on the large bed. What the metal cylons could not see was a tall blond in a tight fitting red dress. This was only seem by and talked to him, just like she was doing now as he was being watched by the one red eyes. "They want you to go with them Baltar. You might want to make it quick. I don't think they are in a good mood today, to be dealing with slow moving humans. Looks like you are not going to have any more fun today, and maybe ever again honey." She said with sly smile and evil laughed at the man lying between two half-dressed young ladies, filled Baltar head almost to the point of him making an out loud comment back at her.

Baltar was a little drunk but only a little, so he was able to smile a disarming smile at the scared women in his bed. "Well ladies, I think that is the look of duty calling me back to work. The duties of an elected President are never done, and take up most of my time as you can see. That is why I need to relax when I can. See I was not lying to you all." He then gave them the sad puppy dog face, which he knew would work on these two less than worldly women. "Why don't you both wait for me here? This should not take too long, I promise." He had no idea how long it would take, but it normally only took ten or twenty minutes to deal with the cylons before he was released again. To return to whatever it was he had been doing before being summoned by the real masters of this world.

The red dressed blonde laughed in Baltar's mind, like some wicked witch in an old horror movie. "I think you're going to be gone a lot longer than you think, Baltar. Why do you think they sent these Centurions to bring you, and not just have one of the human form come over themselves? They want you for something, and it's not something small, dear. By the way, did you pray today? I think you might want to start that little routine. That is if you live through today, that is." The last part was given with a concerned look, on her amazingly beautiful face of the mental apparition in Baltar's mind.

As the metal men like machines were escorting Baltar off of Colonial One. The group passed one of the smaller bedrooms built into the forward part of the grounded spaceship. Felix Gaeta exited the room fully dressed, and fallowed the escort and escorted man, out the space's ships main exit hatch at the front of the ship. Baltar was so busy thinking about himself, that he did not even notice his aide was now fallowing him out the ship's hatch. It was not like the short, dark haired man was important are anything in Baltar's eyes. Felix was just doing what he thought would be best for the people that were left on this planet.

The mix group of cylons and humans walked thru the late afternoon crowd in the muddy "streets" to the only fixed site building on the muddy flat. Baltar tried to friendly wave at the people as they moved passed, to defuse the stress. It only made things worse, the harder he tried to look unconcerned, the more and faster the rumors few around the camp. The building he was taken to, was a prefabricated structure that the Cylons had started to put up on the first full day of the occupation. It was for their use and their use only. Before it was complete it had been surrounded with wire and armed guard points. It was an ugly building, and the odds were that this building had been in storage at some now cylon occupied Colonial facility. A building like this had been packed down as a just in case of an emergency, or natural disaster on one of the dozen planets that used to be the home of man. Now it was being used by the enemy of the Human race, and the victors of its near destruction. The building was intimidating mass of prefabricated building surrounded by a razor wire toped chain link fence, and with Centurion guard check points. Those two items were to stop any humans before they got to close to the building. The mixed group of humans and cylons did not have to stop at any of these check points, as they walked past the armed points. They just went into one of the metal doors, and into a bay like area that took up the one corner area of the ugly building.

It was a big room to have such a small door as an access point. It would have been better suited to have a massive vehicle bay door to access the bay, maybe someone had not thought about that then they had put the ugly building. Three of the four walls of the concrete room had a dozen metal Centurions standing like they might be holding the tall wall up with their backs. In the center of the cold room was an over hip high long metal table, with a cloth covering something laying on its metal top. On the back side of the table facing the humans as they entered, were three more of the gun carrying metal monsters. However the real monsters in the room, were not the metals behind the table or against the wall. It was the old man looking one, that sometimes was called John and sometimes called a Model or Number One Human Form Cylon. He was leaning with one hip against the table that was between him and the escorted humans with his old arms crossed over his small chest. The look he gave to the two humans, was the same look as if you found dog droppings on the sole of your most expensive pair of shoes. It was a normal looked from the Model One cylon and used on everyone, so that was little help to the two humans to know what was going on.

John let the humans get closer and at a point he had told the escorting Centurions earlier to stop, he spoke for the first time. "So Baltar what do you have something you want to explain to me?" The tone coming from the old looking cylon, was what sent warning bells going off up and down Baltar's thin spine. This was not the first time he had heard that tone from a cylon. The last time had been when, he had been told the cylons were going to sweep the camp for potential trouble makers and not to get in there way.

Baltar took a fast second to review in his mind, if he had done anything that might have caused the Number One type cylons to be this mad at him. He could not find anything, so he did what was logical to his warped mind, he opened his mouth. For once it was the right thing to do, and it might have save his life. "Explain, what exactly?" Baltar was playing for time, because this was one of the few times he had no idea what was going on around him. Not even a clue, and in one of the rare times the blonde in the red dress was silent in his mind. It was not a good feeling in Baltar's core, that the mental woman was quiet.

John came away from the table with inhuman speed that betrayed the fact that, he was not an old man, or a man, or for that matter completely human at all. In a flash he was around the table, and was in the face of the elected leader of what remained of the human race. His body was still in motion when his hand and arm moved to fast to be but more than a blur. It grabbed the taller man and pulled Baltar down to the old looking Cylon face. Now they could see as the old term went, eye to eye. "Don't be coy with me you Fraking meat bad! You will tell me about the weapons hidden on this mud ball! You will do it now, or I will have this camp flattened paper fraking thin with everyone still in it!" Little bits of white spit were flying out of the old man looking cylon mouth as he spoke to Baltar.

Baltar started to stammer a little and his eyes had a wild glean to them. Then just as fast, he got his voice a little more under control. "What weapons?! We collected all that we had the first day, and turned them all over to you. Don't you remember? You even sent your metal minions into every ship and tent we had set up after we had done that! You found what two old small game hunting rifles and three low powered pistols, which had not been turned in to me in the first place! Please forgive me for not knowing what in the Gods Fraking life, you're talking about!" Baltar had lost what little control of his voices volume towards the end. It did seem to get the point across to the human form cylons, at least a little, but anyway.

John's face and neck started to turn an off almost pink kind of red, and that was very hard for a member of his type of cylon to do. And they really did not like it, when it happened in anything like a public situation. That was because the Three's and Sixes would take great joy in reminding him about it later, and this time they could add that it had been a mere human had able to embarrassed him. He let go of the human trash's head and shirt and while Baltar regained his balance, John was moving and opening the distance between them.

The One turned and walked more slowly back to the side of the sheet covered table. He wanted to make sure that he could see the face of this human, when he showed him what was under the dirty sheet. Now that the stage was set to John's liking, he used his lighting quick reflexes to full effect. This time it was to grab one of the sheet's corner, and jerked the sheet completely off of a damaged dull chrome almost gun metal colored Centurion. The one that it had been covered on the thick topped industrial strength metal table. The sheet flew in the air and landed far to the side of the room. It was now out of field of view of everyone, but the Centurions standing near the humans that they had escorted into this room. With a smug look on his face old face, John was trying to look down at the only full humans in the room. "So you're going to stand there, and tell me! That you have no idea how this might have happened to one of my Centurions?" John did not have to physically point at the battle damaged machine on the table top to make his point, but he did it anyway.

Baltar could not help but flinch when the cloth went flying through the air, to expose what had been hiding under it. When the sheet had hit the ground and stopped moving, Baltar took a half step toward the metal table. He started patting the chest area of his jacket, until he found the 2 inch by 6 inch long wood and leather box in an inner pocket. He made a bit of a show opening the hinged box, and put on a set of glasses that the expensive box had been holding and protecting. He did not need them to read, but they gave him a magnification power of a little over two times what a normal human eye could do. It was one his best kept secrets, on how he was able to read people so well. You would be amazed at how much a human face would tell another person. That is if you were just looking close enough, to see the "tells" the average person had. He walked up to the high table, and looked down at the machine now on full display. It had two holes that slightly overlapped on one side, almost in the center of the metal chest. A third hole was in the center of the high necked oval shaped head. The head shot was right in the center line, of where the red "eye" of a Centurion would have run its endless laps when activated. It would not be doing any more of those laps, now. Baltar was smart, and he was betting that this metal chassis was only going to be good for spare parts. From the way the human form was acting, not many of those were going to be useful for reuse.

Baltar was in full scientist mode, and he like showing off what he thought of as his vast intellect to anyone that happened to be around him. The affect was somewhat wasted on the cylons, but he was a creature of habit just like most other humans. He stared looking at the two center chest holes first, for the simple reason of that they were the closest to him. When he walked up to the head of the table to look at the "head shot" last. "Let's see what do we have here?" After some more looking, and using his ungloved hands to examine the damage both inside and out. He was making off key humming noise that was also a habit for him, he thought it was what you were supposed to do. It just graded on everyone nerves in the room.

After a few minutes Baltar was back at the twin holes in the chest area and, looked up at the John. "If you look at the edge of the burn marks, you can see that the surrounding armor is dented in at about a 12 degree angle. Now to do that, it had some kind of physical force of impact. There is also some scorching to about the last half inch of armor before the hole has started to be formed." Baltar was looked down again and talking to the air for all he knew. "I don't see any evidence of spalling from the puncture in the outer shell. It looks kind of like, someone took a pair of scopes of butter or ice cream out of his chassis." He leaned farther into and over the flat lying damaged machine. "I'm also seeing evidence of some kind of electrical damage internally, maybe it caused massive shorting out, of the nearby electronics components of this Centurion?"

Baltar took a small side step towards the head of the combat machine, and picked up again at describing the damage. "This looks to be the same type of damage." He stood up straighter and with a bit of showmanship, he took his glasses off to look at the human form cylon. Baltar started fake cleaning them and spoke to the human looking machine. "I would have said that, he was standing to close to the Jump coils during a jump. I have seen this type of damage on someone before, who was hiding in the engine room of one of the cargo ships. That was before I was President. But." He pointed towards the other end of the table "There is some mud on its foot pads, which does not make that theory work. I must ask why you tried to clean it off, before we got here. I would now have to say, that it was hit by a strong bolt of lightning. Or maybe the energy jumped from a tower or large craft, say a Heavy Raider to this guy acting as the ground to well, the ground." He taped the metal arm of the defunct cylon. Why don't you ask it when it competes downloading into its new body? This does not look like weapons damage to me."

John had that smug look still on his face, like a cat playing with a mouse before the killing blow. "So you say he was struck by lightning. So tell me, did any of the wood gathering detail report a lighting strike when they came back? Because that was his last tasks! Do you think I'm a fool? I would have asked my cylon brother what had happened to him, but he did not down load. The only down load, in the last two days has been for one of the Two's. It seemed like that crazy bitch, Starbuck was able to get the drop on him the other day." The Model One had a huge smirk on this face and did not even realize that he was giving out information valuable to someone in the camp. "She pushed him down the stairs then jumped down the same stairs, so she could break his neck with her own hands, before any help could come in." John was smiling about, that he hated Starbuck but he also did not like the Two's. So seeing one get taken down by the other was a good thing in his mind, a very good thing. After all it was not like the Twos could die to an end state or anything unlike the meat bags, are anything like that. That line of thought brought John back to the reason for Baltar to be there. A Centurion had been brought to an end state by an unknown means.

John was so focused on Baltar, that he had not even noticed Felix in the background. That was just fine with Felix, because he was taking mental notes on everything that was going on and being said around him. Felix was very good at playing "The Wall Flower" game, one could not spend any time around Colonel Tigh and not develop that skill. Now he know that something had not only taken a land fighting component of the Cylon's down. But they had done it in such a way, that it was not able to down load into a new body. That is unless this was some kind of elaborate trap being set, but Felix was unable to see what they would want with such a trap. It did seem like the Centurion had been killed, and it was freaking out the human form cylons very badly. Felix was thinking, that was some kind of poetic justice from the Gods, that the cylons were scared of dying. Especially after all of the humans, that they had killed over the last two years without even the thought of mercy for them. "Well that is something I can put in my next messages at the dead drop in the morning." Felix had to make sure to school his face, when that thought went flashing threw his mind.

Felix could not recall everything that was said, between the evil God's Damn things in front of him and Baltar. The only other thing of real value was that they were going to lock the village down early, as a punishment for the "dead" cylon. He would put in as much as much information as he could in this message. So that his people would have an idea of what was going on at this level of human cylon interaction. Besides if they could figure out how the Centurion, had been taken out and repeat it. Well that would be a game changer on an epic level. It was with this thought that was in Felix's mind, that they were escorted back to the grounded ship that was Colonial One.

As the late afternoon was turning in to full dark, Roslin was still talking to a glowing computer screen. That is until it gave a medium loud three beep series, that made her look up from her reading. When she looked up there was a large green round circle flashing, with red arrows that would run from the edge of the screen to point at the green circle on the display screen. It was begging for her to touch it, but she was reluctant to do that. At least not without some of her more trusted friends around, but the Cylons had lock the housing area down, tight. She had heard threw the then tent walls a few of her people being physical assaulted then they did not make it under cover quick enough. Now she could not have them come over, and was left up to her own devices. It might have been only a few seconds, but it seemed like an hour to Roslin as she watched the flashing arrows. The flashing light was too much and she touched the screen anyway.

The black screen turned into a vivid image, which started to speak in a tongue that the school teacher could not understand. But as the 50ish yarn old man talking there was ancient Kobalian that was scrolling across the bottom of the screen. The images went on for about another 20 minutes then went into some kind of auto replaying mode and it started over. On the third replay, she started to take written notes on some handy slips of paper on the wooden table top. She had a feeling that she would be retelling this about a hundred times in the near future, and she wanted to make sure she got it all down for reference. She knew some of the others would try to shoot holes, in what she was telling them about what had just happened to them. She had seen it happen before and she knew it would happen again. She was shaking her head from side to side as she wrote. "Who would have thought another group of Colonials had been stranded on this same cold planet for so long?" It was just to amazing to let her head wrap around it, yet.

In another part of the camp at about the same time. A young dark haired man was writing his next note that he would be putting at what was called a dead drop in the trade. After that it could be passed to along to the next link in chain, to finally reach the head of the resistance to the cylon occupation. The wording had to be just right before it was ready to be dropped off. This was because he had to make sure to cover what he knew from a list of different meetings. He also had to identify and separate what he was inferring, from what he had seen and heard first hand. Plus he had to do it all in such a way that if wrong someone else picked up the paper. It could not be easily tracked back to him as the source of the information. It was a puzzle and people who plotted jump coordinates for years, tended to like working on puzzles in there off time. This was the most fun Felix has had since leaving the Old Bucket, for this job. That was also because he knew what was missing from Baltar's room before that Fraker did. His bed warms were long gone, along with a few bottles of ambrosia that had been left out. Felix had to work very hard not to make happy sounds as he worked on this little project in his small but private room.

By the time that Baltar got back to his bedroom/office it was empty of any other living soul. He was not that surprised that he found it that way. He just went over to the bar and poured himself a large glass full, of the limited supply of ambrosia that the human race had left. Now with his feet up, and a glass of something that will relax him. He was ready to allow himself to slip off into the warm embrace of sleep. He could and did shut off his mind, and all feelings for what was going on around him and slipped away from the one corner of his mind.

Back at the ugly temporary building, things were not so subdued. The human form cylons were having a meeting near the table that was still holding there fallen metal warrior. They would argue for hours and hours, on what had happened to the Centurion. Was it and act of the one god? Or was it an act of the humans? Those were the two ideas that dominated the airwaves in the slab sided building. The group of human forms cylons, was split right down the middle on that one question. A simple act of nature, was not even listen to after the first five minutes of the meeting. All the while the Number One cylon named John, did what most people would call sulking off to one side of the room.

Across the field and into the wilds of the planet, Rex was ready to move again. Now that the sun was down, and he was sure that no one seemed to have followed him. He had been worried, that he had already blown this important mission. When he shot the metal walking machine, but it seemed like no one noticed it was down for hours, and that the wood cutting detail was short one escort. The over watch crew was already settling in for the long, cold and wet night that would only offer very few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Rex put his night vision goggles on, and walked stealthily to another hover cycle hidden nearby. He used this one to leave the fake camp, and to make it back to the forward base. He was not looking forward to the de-briefing when he got there. Even throw almost everything went according to plan, except for him having to take one of the metal combat units out that is. Now the de-briefing was going to be a painful experience.

The one bit of good news he had found out and he would be able to pass along in the de-briefing. Was that the metal machines, were not that hard to put down for the count. His heavy Ion pistol was a high output weapon, for just a human scale pistol. But it was only a secondary sidearm, and it had taken down the metal machine with only two or three shots. Just think what a few powered armor units could do to this things, if it came down to it. Rex was thinking about ways to get some more information on those metal things, as he drove into the night. He was still upset that one of them had almost gotten the drop on him in the woods like it had. He was not looking forward to telling that part of the story. He knew it would not take long, for that bit of information to spread around the little camp like a wild fire. He had a reputation to live down to after all. He had a sly smile on his helmet covered head as the dark trees flashed by him at over 100 mph. He was thinking about that he had given a little payback for what the metal machines had done to that woman when they landed on that day.

As it turned out, the de-briefing had been as much of a pain in the neck, as he had thought it would be. They were not happy that he had might blow the mission because of what happened after he had dropped off the computer. It was not only that he had dropped the robot, but the fact that other people were on this planet and they were armed was going to get out.


	11. Chapter 11 Hands off Chap 6a

Chapter 6a The Hand off

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

 **New Caprica,**

 **671 Days after the Fall of the Colonies,**

 **3 years 2 month 01 days AT**

It had been two days since the little drop off of the translation computer, to the group of strangers under guard by the mix of metal and clones troops. Rex was again watching from his new favorite spot of rocks and bushes. He had been surprised that they had given him the mission after the issue of the metal machine getting the drop on him. Instead they had let him rest for 24 hours before sending him back out again to the cold wilds of the planet. The plan had always been that he would be sent out again, for the simple reason he had been the one to make the first contact and why risk a new face in the mix. Rex knew this but he was still surprised when Major Weston had told him that he would be going out again, in a face to face meeting.

Rex was well hidden from anyone looking up from the cleared cut area, or for that matter any side that someone might be using. A second scout deployed not far away, with the same type of equipment that he was using down to the Ultra 300 huntsmen Choice. She was watching the road from the same spot that he had been hiding in. Just for those couple of days before the first drop off had been made. The second scout would signal Rex with two clicks on the short radio between the two hiding locations. Those clicks would be when the second scout "heard" the truck coming back to the clearing for day. This was a secondary mission for the second scout. The primary mission was to see if the new group of humanoids, might be able to pick up on any stray radio transmissions. If the metal escort responded to the radio transmission? Then the people from Rift Earth, would know about that capability of this new maybe enemy. If they responded to the radio transmission, the hidden scout would move away from all camps, and away from any other known campsites. She would then try to lead the metal walkers and clones, on a marry chase through the deepest woods she could. The hard part was that she would not lead the tin men, back to the support bases or the growing list of "refugee" satellite camps that had been found so far. In short it was risky, very risky for both the scout and anyone else that was on this side of the planet.

Rex was listening on his helmets building speakers, to the early morning cool and wet air. He could not hear anything moving around him, but some quite movement of a few of the thinner and higher limbs over his head. So when the radio gave him the pair of clicks that the truck was on its way to the wood cutting area, Rex almost jumped out of his boots. Okay he would call it a flinch to the few others he told about it, but it had felt like a jump to him. He really didn't jump. Because that would have caused noise, and the scouts hated making any noise they did not have to. He was still beating himself up, for when the metal machine got the drop on him in a private moment. Rex knew it was affecting him more, than he would have admitted to anyone but himself late at night. Res was watching the truck closely, with now a dozen metal robots running along beside it up the muddy almost improved trail. That was not good, Rex's book. "Looks like the metal one, I blasted was noticed after all." Thought Rex in his inner voice to himself, and again he mentally kicked himself for the lapse in awareness.

As Rex was watching what he thought was the same military like six wheeled cargo truck make the final turn, and come to rest just short of the clearing. As soon as the truck stopped he could see a very mud splattered body dropped from under the heavy metal frame of the off road truck. It rolled off of the rough cut road, and into the woods on the opposite side of where Rex waiting. The hidden scout had seen the whole thing play out before him. He was about to start moving that way, when what Rex would have called a Boy type clone, and the cylons had called a Number Five showed up. It had stepped out of the passenger side of the still slightly rocking cargo truck, and into the cleared and flatish area of mud. Rex froze in place before he could move more than four of five inches. "Well this was going to be a long day?" Was the first thought that ran through Rex's mind as he stopped moving?

The boyish face clone was not watching the humans under his charge. He spent the day surrounding by the metal cylons close by, and watching the wood line around them. Whoever had hitched a ride out under the tuck would have to take care of themselves, and avoid being caught for a while without any outside help. It was too much of a risk to find them quickly, and still keep on his primary mission. Rex pushed the task to the back of his mind as he watched the mixed group moving around him. His primary target was working on bring down a tree not too far away from Rex, just has he had hoped he would. When the tree had been felled, the target walked over to the stump for the first tree he had dropped on the last trip that Rex had made contact near. That was the same area that the target had been given the computer to sneak back into the camp. Rex would need to make contact to see if, there was anything to be given to him or not. Rex was split on whether he wanted to be given something or not.

Duck was tired with both warm and cold sweet pouring off of his body. He had been trying to drop that last massive tree as fast as he possibly could, and it just was not working out the way he wanted to. Yesterday he had been called back to the School via an eight yarn old bottle of barley controlled energy. He had watched and read the strange hand written message, and had been asked by both the former president and the former XO of the old Battlestar before he popped the slip of paper into his mouth to dispose of properly. They wanted him to take a message back out on the next wood cutting detail he had planned to be on. The wood cutting detail was going out every day, much to the surprise of everyone that was not a cylon. He had agreed to the task, but deep down. He wished that he was the one to be the person to make first real contact with these lost people. And not just pass along a message to one of them, if things went as planned.

Duck gave himself another head shake, he was totally amazed that they had gotten Galen Tyrol sober enough, to take on the job of first person to person contact. It did make some since that the two leaders had chosen him to be the one for the job. He had been a heavy drinker and would not be missed, now that the Cylons "knew" he was harmless by first and second hand accounts. Tyrol was also known not to be seen in public for days, and even as much as a few weeks at a time. Duck sat down on the still fresh cut stump, and open a bottle of water. He took a long sip, but he was faking most of the sip. The one thing they did not have to worry about on this cold, wet mud ball. That was running out of water. Thought Duck, as he looked around over the water bottle. He was watching the cylons, but they seemed not to be looking at him. Duck felt that it was a good time, so he made his move. Duck stood up and put the water bottle back in its hip holder. Then Duck pulled out a ratty piece of cloth from one of his outer coat's pocket. He blew his nose as naturally as he could, then wiped the sweat off his neck with the same bit of cloth. Instead of putting the cloth back into his outer coat pocket. He moved around a little more, and dropped the bit of cloth. It landed right next to a bush, which was growing almost out of the nearby rock out cropping. With his break done, Duck walked over to another person who was working on cutting down one of the very tough trees. It was just like nothing had happened, and teaming up did put two axes to work on the same tree. It did not cut in half the time it took to cut a tree down, but it was faster. That is if you could match the timing of the second swinger. Duck was sweating again in no time. He had no idea if was from the message drop, or working on cutting down the hard wood tree. He pushed the thought out of his mind as best he could and kept time chopping a back cut into the tree.

Rex was fighting hard not to have a heart attack, when the target had drop what he thought might be a note of some kind almost at his feet. When he saw the target move off, without make any sign of wanting to talk. Rex was in the exact spot that he had been during the first contact, and this time he looked more like a bush than a mix of rock and bush this time. Rex just waited for what felt like hours, before he was able to pick up the maybe note out of the mud. From his position there were currently no metal or clone soldiers in his line of sight. It was not an easy task to pick up the "cloth" without being noticed, but he did so using every bit of his skills.

With his prize secured in one hand, he needed to kept his general place, but inch by inch he was moving to take cover behind the rock outcropping. Not long after the drop off of the bit of cloth. The cutting crews without their escorts/guards started moving away from the rock outcropping. They were moving to a different area to work on maybe some softer wood trees. This had an effect on the watching cylons. And soon the focus of any scanning eyes or whatever, was well away from Rex's current location. Rex was still not able to read the note that had been dropped. Until that is, the wood cutting crew had re-boarded the truck, and headed back to the field of grounded space ships. When the wood cutting detail left, they took the group of metal guards with them.

Rex was not looking forward to trying to read a note with snot blown into it, but you had to do what you had to do sometimes. The truth was, he had to do a lot worse things before in his life. That would not even be in the top fifty of nasty things, he had to do to complete a mission. As it turned out he was very surprised. That is when he opened the folded cloth, that it was not full of snot after all. His target, had faked it very well. Because even with Rex almost in the Duck's hip pocket, had thought he had really blown his nose into the cloth. Rex gave a small smile, but he did not shake his head, under this camouflage netting. The other guy had been acting all along. As Rex looked at the note, he found that it was written in Standard English, sort of. It was done well enough that most of the meaning came through, and it let them know that the translator computer had worked.

Rex was not a school trained scholar to say the least, but the note was pretty straight forward. The CS did not like people to learn how to read and write. They were so against it in fact. That the CS military leadership and government, had invested in voice control software from anything technical to more mundane and everyday used devices. Rex had learned the basics, and that was only because his mother said that it would pay to be smarter than the next person in the room. She had always said that this was so that they, did not get away with taking advantage of you. The CS just used it to better control the war ravaged humans in their area of control.

Captain Kelly had not agreed with that idea. Since the much reduced supply and support convoy had been on this planet. The Triumvirate had mandated that everyone would have a certain level of education. It did not matter how old you were, and on one was exempt from this rule. Everyone had taking a placement test within the first four months of the two ships dropping anchor in the bay. And if you did not score to a certain level, you went back to class until you reached the required level. If you wanted to do better that that low bar? You could take extra classes given by experts on all different types of subjects. What they did not know was that if they had been in the 21st century? That when everyone had passed that test, it would have been called an 8th grade level of baseline education for their Settlement. If you took and passed additional classes you got a reward, and if you pushed for even higher levels of education? You would get a bigger reward, after you tested again. Rex had found out that he liked to read, and was now reading even more than when he had been on Earth. The note was written in English letters, but it was not like anything the scout had seen before. Rex could only understand one of the ideas this group was trying to get across in the small text the note was written in. After a half dozen tries at reading, he thought that he might be understanding what the note was meant to say. It was just too bad that there was only one way to find out. Rex carefully refolded the cloth, and put in a pocket to keep it safe if not completely dry.

Rex moved around the slowly growing muddy clearing, until he was directly opposite of his location where he had seen the body drop from below the truck into the mud. Rex was not in full stealth mode now, but he also was not advertising his presents to anyone who might still be around the local area. Time was too short to be full stealth mode, but he was trying to be as quite as he could for the speed he needed to travel to catch the other person. It was a lot like how he would have moved back home, hunting deer or turkeys to put dinner on the table. He crossed a set of human tracks and some slide marks. They were headed away from the parking area, Rex turned and fallowed them deeper into wet tan and green forest. The tracks he saw were like someone was moving at close to a military high craw going deeper into the woods, away from the metal machines and clones. Rex tracked it for about a half mile, which was when Rex noticed the first good and full boot print in the mud. The tread pattern was like nothing he had ever seen before, this was not a bad sign. He had to assume that it was from the person he was supposed to meet according to the note he had been given. After about another half a mile more, the ground turned from wet earth and flat into a small rocky hill. Rex was starting to get a little worried as he moved deeper to the woods. That was because they had a report of a very small group of escapees, not too far from this outcrop of metamorphic rock. The note in Rex's pocket had said to hit a tree hard twice, and call out word Zeus. As it turns out, this word sounds almost exactly the same in both languages. The reply would be three strikes on a tree and a counter call word of Hi, in English. Rex was thinking that whoever came up with this plan was either very sneaking or very smart, which he had no idea. But he like it.

Rex knew he was close to the person he had been tracking. The last half hour he was being helped with the tacking by something other than the odd boot print. He could already tell that the person he was tracking needed a bath, his teeth cleaned, and something to detox him. All of that was what he could tell from what his nose, was picking up on the slight wind blowing towards him. Rex was considered the best scout to come to this world from that monster torn Earth. Today he felt that he was proving, both to himself and to anyone else that he still was that good.

Galen Tyrol was really wishing that Colonel Tigh had not talked him into doing this crazy fraking stunt. This was something more in line with what Starbuck would have love to do, but not him. He was cold, wet, tired, and hung-over and it was all working on his motivation. Kind of like a wrecking ball the size of a battlestar. This was just not his type of thing he like to do, even when he was in the military. He was just flat tired of risking his life. He had done it one time to often while he was in the fleet. And that was one of the reason he had taken the offer to leave the military after landing on this Gods forsaken planet. If he kept on doing Fraked up stuff like this? He knew the law of averages was going to catch him, he just knew it in his bones. His head was hurting more and he wanted to throw up, again. He took a deep breath and took another set of ten steps then picked out the next target to walk towards. He was fighting the natural tenancies to make big loops when you were walking the deep forest. While he was working on trying to stay on a straight heading. He was thinking about what he had been talked into, and what had gone through already.

He had been okay with it, even after six of them had tied him up to the underside of the off road cargo truck. That had happened just after local sun up, and a few hours before it had rolled out on the next wood cutting mission. He had been able to get some sleep while he had waited hidden in the beast heavy undercarriage. Even with his legs, hips and a rope under his arms all tied to the metal frame of the truck, he had been able to get some useful sleep. That had lasted until the truck has stated moving, even that had not been too bad. It had not enjoyable by any means, but bearable. It was when the truck started to hit the rougher parts of the trail that things had gone down hills Then in that little bit of Hades, he had turned his head and empty his abused stomach more than once due to the abuse. The muddy lane would cover what little he had to empty out of his mouth to fall in the muck. Then things had gone downhill from there. That was when the rope holding his legs, had broken loose after the truck had passed over a set of particularly ruff spot on the trail.

He had been lucky that somehow his mind had kicked in before something very bad had happened. He had been able to shove his feet onto a small metal ledge of the frame, and keep pressure on them. With his legs locked or wedge in, he was pretty certain that he could not be seen, dragging under the truck by the escorting cylons. He was losing energy quickly, because of the effort to keep his legs up, along with a good douse of wetness, and the cold. His brain was starting to get even foggier because of hypothermia as the trip went on. That was why it took a few seconds before he realized that the truck he was under, had stopped moving. Some part of his brain was still working despite what he had gone through. He realized the he had to get out from under the truck, before anyone noticed him hang out down there. That include the Colonials on today's work detail. The last thing that Tyrol needed, was someone on the detail somehow deciding that fallowing him was a good idea. Tyrol looked around as best he could with a knife at the ready. The Centurions were all forward of the truck and off to one side, when Tyrol cut the two remaining ropes. When the second rope let go he hit the ground flat on his back. It shock was a bit of surprise, but he was able to roll off to one side away from any eyes. All the while making sure to protect the amazing computer, he had wrapped and strapped to his chest before all of this crap had happened to him this morning.

Now that Tyrol was in the woods, the trees and bushes give him some cover. His mind had finally started to catch up to his body movements. The wet and mud spattered overcoat was working like a charm to hide him for observation from both human and cylon. He waited very still at the inner edge of the wood line, to see if there was any response to him being there. But all eyes seemed to be on the human work crews on the other side of the high wheeled cargo truck that had been in one of the landed ship's cargo hold. Galen was a military man, but he had been trained on how to support the Vipers from a Battlestar or other space ship. There was no way he was becoming one of those fighters that loved the mud. Now he was thankful for all of those schools, that the Colonial Military had made he go threw out his career. Those schools were designed to make sure that everyone could do all of the common task for war-fighting and killing cylons.

Tyrol moved slowly and low till he was deeper in the wood line, and put those almost forgotten skills to good use. He waited until it was about an hour after he had dropped out from under the cargo truck, before he stopped and opened his overcoat. Now he could take the computer off of his chest and could put in in the rucksack on his back. This was going to be a lot safer for computer, as he moved through the forest. It would also make it more comfortable for Galen as he moved, military style threw the bushes and trees around him. With that done, he was again slowly crawling way from the cylons. The only thing that was keeping him going, was thinking about the amazing computer he was carrying on his back. It was his only major motivation thing that could keep going. When he thought he was far enough from the work-site, Tyrol went from crawling on his belly to walking like a man again. It was less stealthy but it was also quicker and quicker meant he would generate more body heat. It would also put more distance between him and the cylons behind him.

Being out of the mud was doing wonders for him to retain some body heat, but he still was not doing anything like fighting off the hypothermia yet. His head and stomach, were both starting to even calm down a little. They were not back to "normal" or even normal for him, but they were starting to feel a little improved and more stable. He was told by Colonial Tigh to keep going, till he found a place he thought it would be safe or safeish to hold up. Roslin and the Colonel had faith in him that he would be able to keep it together to complete this task. Why? He had no idea, but did not want to let them down if he could help it. So he only patted the metal bottle of rot gut, which he had hidden under his coat and kept walking. He was moving as slowly and as quietly as he could. He was not a Colonial Marine, so he had no idea if he was doing that great of a job of either.

The sun was just started to go down when Tyrol found a spot that would due, or at least he could make due for tonight. Now all he had to do was worry that the person he was supposed to meet, was just as good as the Colonel seemed to think they would be. Galen was setting behind a clump of small trees or bushes with a cold wet rock under his behind, trying to relax and let his tired muscles recover somewhat. He was just starting to think he was really going to have to say out in the strange dark and wet woods alone tonight. With that thought, his hand started to reach for a little bit of bottled warmth with in the folds of his damp outer coat with a will that was all their own. After all it was not like he could start a fire to feel warm. He bet that the cylons would not be happy when they found him about ten seconds after he could get a fire going. That is if he did something as dumb as that. Galen Tyrol was not that dumb of a person, and was proud of himself that he had not lost that many brain cells, yet. His hand froze in place, when he heard someone knock on the side of a tree five or ten feet away him. Tyrol was still trying to work out if he had imaged the sound. Then someone called out the code word in a voice that was just load enough to carry the same distance to his ears.

Tyrol was thinking about not doing anything for more than a few seconds at the sound of the code word. Then he thought, what good would it due. If that person he was supposed to meet, could track him to within five or ten feet. Then there was no way that he did not know where, he was right this second. Galen quickly looked around and found what he needed within easy arm reach. Then used a heavy stick that was handy, to tap on the trunk of the largest of nearby trees, and mimicked the sound he had practiced in the school tent. Now all he had to do, was hope the other person heard him. Well and that this was not some kind of Cylon trick. He did not have to wait long, before a multi-dark colored painted face looked over one of the low bushes at him less than ten feet for Tyrol. This was very disturbing to Galen who had not notice it standing that close to him in direct line of site. The very oddly colored person put one of his finger, so that it blocked the lips. The odd colored face held this pose for about 30 seconds, and then slowly pointed out of the little hidden area Tyrol had been sitting in.

Tyrol was standing very still but propped up on a handy part of huge little over hip high sandstone stone slopped boulders, then slowly nodded his head up and down. "Well I guess that we can't exactly be chatty right off the kick off, now can we." Tyrol said softly to himself, as he pulled his tired body up off the now dry rock. Soon Galen Tyrol was fallowing the man in the strange walking bush looking covering, deeper into the wilds of this cold planet.

Rex led the other man away from the known group of the others, and towards a deep banked creek. Rex had to stop once along the way to pull out a map, to double check his location as a refresher. He had not planned to come this way, so he had not reviewed the area that well. That was before he had come this far, after the point of contact mentioned in the note. Before he put away the waterproof map, he waved to the other man to come over. Rex wanted to show him were they were going. Even after almost ten minutes of hand signals. Rex had no idea if he was getting through to the other man or not. The true was, that he did not have time to care that much either way. The two men need to make it just over three miles, before it got dark. Rex was able to push the speed up to a slow walk and in the end, it had been barely enough time. The last half mile or so was in a creek bed that Rex had been looking for. Rex had not liked moving that fast and felt very vulnerable, until they were able to put some kind of terrain between them and the landing field.

Once they reached the creek bed and went around a sharp bend, they went only about two or three hundred feet more before Rex brought them to a halt. He slowly turned around and surveyed a full 360 degrees around him, this spot would work perfectly. Soon they were taking a break on one side of the creek bank, now that Rex was happy with their current location. Rex pulled out some of his field rations from the small pack on his back. He even was able to build a protected little low fuel fire to heat them up on. Rex even gave the out of shape stranger one of the ocean orange-pear or OOP he had in his small backpack. Rex was of two minds about given him the fresh fruit, but after looking at the other man. He softly tossed the stranger from off planet the fresh fruit.

The OOP had been found some time during the first full year on this planet, and would have been called a super fruit back home before the Rifts had brought man low. One of the Pear shaped fruits had a full weeks' worth of Vitamin C, A, and a dozen other vitamins and complex sugars. That was all in an about two pound average package size. It was even complete with an edible outer skin that protected the soft flesh under it. It had just one down side that had come as quit the surprise to this new group of humans from Earth. You so just don't want to drink any alcohol up to 12 hours after you had eaten one of them or drank as little as an ounce of the juice. As it happens, after you eat the fruit and your body started to digest the wonderful tasting fruit. It would coat the stomach lining and that coating did not like alcohol, not one bit. That said, the person who drank alcohol would do their best to empty what was in there stomach in a violent upheavals. And those projectile upheavals could often last for hours on end. It would feel like days to the person who had mixed the two items together in there belly. It had been, and still was. A prime candidate for practical jokes among the people from Rifts Earth. All one had to do was sneak them into someone's food unseen. Then of course, you simply would have to live pass the payback that was sure to come for using the OOP on some unsuspecting soul. It had quickly surpassed putting a mega dose of laxatives in someone deserts.

Unlike on the landmass on this cold and wet planet. The water plants had evolved pollinators to help make flowers and fruits some many millennia age. OOP was grown on huge kelp like plants that were near what passed for the warmer currents in the oceans. The OOP's would grow in the hundreds per plant, and when they were close to being ripe. A reaction happened between two layers of the outer skin of the fruit that produced oxygen. The closer the fruits were to being ripe, the more air would be produced by the reaction, and stored between the two outer layers of fruit. The fruit would start to float as more air was stored between the layers adding more and more bouncy to the fruit. When it was fully ripe, enough force would be generated by the air bladders to snap the thin connecting stem off the kelp like plant. The fruit would then float up to the surface of the water, and remain there until something broke the thin out layer that released the air pocket. Without the air pocket, the fruit and seed would fall to the ocean bottom, and hopefully start to grow a new plant from the seed and the energy reserve of the inside flesh.

The bad part was that the outer skin was so thin, that if it hit another floating fruit? It had a good chance to breaking the skin to early and the fruit would rot on the vine or kelp. The Rifters also were still working out the detail on the fruit. What was the best time to pick the fruit to meet human needs for eating and storing? What they were using now, was the changing of the fruits outer skin color as an indicator of the "right" time. The fruit started off having a light green skinned, and that first formed. When a thin sponge like flower dropped off the kelp. So far no one had like eating the green skinned ones, but more than a few people where working to see what they could make out of them. The skin color would slowly turn to a black color and that was found to be the moistest. When they reached that color, was when divers would start picking the fruit as fast as they could. As the layer between the skins filled with more air, the outer layer turned from black to a snow white color. The white colored skinned fruits were the easiest to get, but the inner meat of the fruit was very dry compared to the darker skinned ones. The white skinned fruits had the next to lowest trade value, so far of the OPPs.

The white skinned fruits still had all the benefits of the more desirable black skinned fruits, it just was not as tasty. Rex hated give up the fresh fruit, but the poor guy had the look of starting to go into the early first stage of Scurvy. He had seen this diseases more than a few times in his life already and could pick up the signs quickly. He was think that if the rest of the people in the camp were this bad off? Then the Settlement might be in trouble trying to help them out. Rex had seen what happened when one group needed food, and they thought another group had plenty to share. It had always ended in lots of bloodshed, in Rex's field experience. It was something he did not want to see or experience again, ever.

After Rex had been able to get some food into his body, he had not eaten anything for close to fourteen hours. Rex made some hand and arm jesters that he wanted the other man to stay while he went looking around the local area and do something. Rex could tell that the other man was not getting it, and he was starting to get visibly upset. That was when the stranger pulled the back pack off of his own mud covered back. In the now removed rucksack, was the translations computer that Rex had dropped off a few days ago. It was only a few seconds later using the computer, that Rex could tell the still eating man, that he was going to get some transportation them to use. He was even able to tell the guy not to drink alcohol while he was gone, he did not tell the man about the fruit he was eating. Rex could tell that the man being left behind, was not that happy that bit of advice or order depending on how you looked at it. The scout knew, but could not prove, that he had some high octane liquid on his person. Rex would bet on that he wanted to have a nip or three as soon as the scout was gone. That was not Rex's problem as he made his way in the dark. Rex felt like he had done his good deed for the day, and warned him not to hit the hard stuff. If he did not listen? Well he was not the one that would pay for it later. They were far enough away that any sound he made, because of the bad mix. Should go unnoticed by any un-friendlies from the local area.

It took Rex almost three hours to find his hidden hover cycle he was looking for in the dark, even with help of his high tech night vision goggles that he had been given. The trip back to the mud covered stranger, was faster. Thinks in part, to his night driving goggles. But it still took longer than it should have, given the high speed that the cycle was capable of. Rex had to keep the speed low, because the faster he went. The more noise the cycle would make, that might be picked up by unwanted ears. And the higher chance that he would wrap the irreplaceable hover cycle, around something that was not very forgiving at any speed.

Tyrol was setting in the dark and damp creek bed, waiting and worrying as the minutes drew out into hours. The little fire that the bushman had made had gone out, not long after the scout had left him alone in that same creek bed. He had thought about adding some more of the limited supply of dry fuel, that he could see lying around him to keep the fire bringing. But just the flash of a thought of a cylon finding him, stayed his hands and they remained in his outer coat pockets. The little fire, while it was burning and the walking had finished drying out his cloths. He was happy at least he was not fighting hypothermia at the moment. He felt so much warmer now, than he had been while sliding through the mud earlier in the day. That did not mean that he felt "warm", he was very far from it. He was missing the heat that the systems on the massive ship generated and could not vent out to the bad conductor of heat that Space was. But at least he did not feel like his life was at risk, because of the ever present cold and damp. Tyrol had his back against the rock of the creek bank, and was trying to relax by listing to the water as it flowed over the nearby rocks. He was hoping that he would go to sleep, but for some reason it did not come. He was focused on the sound of the water and was thankful that at least it was not raining. That was when a soft new sound was added to the mix. It started as an air rushing sound that grew steady louder, but did not get louder than the cargo truck moving down a one of the mud paths that had come into being on this planet. The sound was getting a little louder by just a fraction again. Somehow Tyrol could not tell from what direction it was coming from no matter how hard he tried to work on the problem. So when the strange hovering thing came around the protected corner of the creek bank and stopped in front of him. Well, Tyrol about jumped out of his skin in those ten seconds that seemed to stretch out into long minutes. His hands flew to his right hip, but the holster that should have been there was missing. It had been missing for over a year now, and this was the first time that he had noticed it being gone. Galen hand was frozen in place like a statue at one of the now gone temples of the Gods

Rex pulled his hover cycle up next to the little flat area, that he had set up to cook the food, and provide a little shelters for his lost mud covered lamb. The mud covered guy was still there sitting in the damp dark air just as Rex had left him but his face was looking a little more shockey looking. Rex looked around the area, and he gave the stranger a few points in Rex's Book of Staying Alive. The stranger must have known that the fire, if not done very carefully. Might have drawn some unwanted attention to him, and had known enough not to keep it going after Rex had left. Rex flipped one of the handlebar mounted switches, and shut down the hover cycle. Rex could see the hand near the empty right hip area, and took off his head covering helmet. So that the other man would be able to see who it was, even in the dark area they were hiding in. He had been luck and this was one of the clearer nights on this often cloud covered planet

Tyrol was steering at the hover thing as it dropped to the ground with only the sound of a few boots stepping on gravel. He was too stunned to move a muscle and break the vision before him. He had seen some hover test vehicles before first hand, and on entertainment shows before the cylons put a stop to that with nuclear weapons. But he had never seen or even heard of one this quiet or for that matter this small. When the scout removed the covering full face helmet, he could tell it was another human who had found him in the woods. The paint or makeup was in the same visibly pattern and colors, and the bush like covering was gone. Who was he? Tyrol still had no idea, but he thought it was the same scout he had been walking through the woods. But with the dark paint and now in local darkness, he was not 100 percent sure. What he did think was that it was not a cylon. Even cylons had not shown this level of technology, that Tyrol had seen.

The movement of the helmet coming off the head of the "driver", and cradled it in his right arm. The driver sat and looked right at the Colonial, and carefully not making any sudden moves. Tyrol was able to come back to reality, as he brain caught up to reality. "Well I guess that you are my transportation." The experienced engineer was able rise smoothly form the rock, to first stand, and then walked around the strange device. Tyrol was trying to engrain every detail of the machine into his brain. It had a ball turret like what was used on early model Raptors. This turret carried a twin barreled weapon of some unknown kind. He did know it was not a Colonial KEW or a Marine support class machine gun. Behind the weapons turret, it had a long slopped windscreen. That seemed to be protecting, not an overly long dark colored seat from the wind and the wet, maybe. Next item that drew his eye was that it had two rocket like engines, mounted on high on the back and to either side of the "seat". They looked to be mounted to the frame with gambles like mounts on the bottom of the craft. They looked something like, what they had put on Marine Combat Landing craft. That had been when he had first joint the Colonial Fleet, and now they were all lost. Along with the rest of the Colonial Fleet and everything else, he had been used to.

Rex put a figure eight looking device on one of the "handle bars" of the cycle. The scout was waiting for Tyrol to do, what Rex thought everyone knew how to do. After a few more seconds of waiting. Rex twirled the night vision goggles around his finger, to get the other man's attention. The movement did the trick. And got the dirt covered man's attention, and looking at Rex and not the Turbo hover cycle. The Colonial took the microelectronic filled goggle like device, and turned it over and hove in his hands as he tried to look at it from every angle that he could.

After looking over the device, as best that he could, Tyrol but the strange glasses on his head. He quickly took a deep breath, and almost ripped them off his head quicker than he had put them on. That was when the light gathering device, had turned the outside night into almost day bright in the creek bed as soon as the goggle had sealed on his face. After he clamped down on his reaction some, and got his breathing under control. He threw his right leg over motorcycle like machine but behind the driver near the handle bars. Tyrol had been on the big side before the fall, but short food rations and stress had reduced his waist line a lot after the cylon attack. But he still was not a small person, by any means. Tyrol was trying to get as comfortable as he could, but the scout in front of him, also was not exactly a small person either. It also did not help, that this odd motorcycle like riding device, had not been designed for two full sized people to use it at the same time.

While Tyrol was still trying to get comfortable, Rex flipped the switch that activated the drive systems on the hover cycle. The Turbo class hover cycle, rose of the damp rock covered ground. Rex's right hand, put a little pressure on the controls. The cycle turned a complete 180 degree of turning in the cycles own very short length. Tyrol was able to keep his seat, just barley, as the craft went crazy under his pants. The Viper engineer had worked on VTOL's, and things like Raptors AG systems before, and was able to not freak out this time. He was not that surprise by the ability of the machine, to spin like a child's top on an ice sheet, all with him trying to hang on to another maybe male passenger to keep his balance. The machine from Hades was picking up speed, as it made its way up the creek bed. It was only about five feet over the top of the wet rocks and water. Tyrol was now holding on to a pair of "Oh Frak" handles, which seemed to be recently added. With all the strength he had is mechanic trained hands, he griped the cold metal handles.

Tyrol used his height and stretched a little, to look over at were the in instrument panel should be on the cycle that was moving like a bat out of Hades. The panel was where he thought it might, and it was only softly glowing even with the light gathering goggles on. He had another stroke of fortune, and luckily these strangers seemed to use the same type of numbering system. He had no idea what there unit of measurements might be, but if he was right? Then they were moving really fast. A gust of wind hit him in the face, and had no idea what 60 meant. But he did not have a safety helmet of any type on. Then the crazy machine jumped 45 feet straight up into the air with a sudden jerk that almost made him lose his seat. Before he could say a word, they were over the slides of the creek bed and on the top of the right side bank of soil and roots. Now clear of the congested creek bed, Rex smiled unseen inside his helmet, and he hit an even higher speed. This was the fun part for Rex, and he was going to get the most out of every second that he could. He had no idea what the ride was doing to the person that was sitting behind him, and he really did not care anyway. Have fun was when and where you could make it.

When the machine stopped bouncing after launching over the lip of the creek, Galen was thrown back as the hovering machine accelerating like a Viper going out of a launch tube. This time Tyrol felt that he was going to lose his seat on the God's Damn machine for good, but the scout in front of him shifted his mass a little. This stopped Tyrol from going over the side of the almost Viper fast machine, with an open cockpit. The machine slowly started to pick up even more speed, as the narrow machine flew now about 45 feet off the ground under a pitch black cloud covered sky. He was starting to get very cold. Now that the swift moving air was starting to give him some serious wind chilling effect through all the layers of clothing he was wearing. The slip stream effect was having two benefits to the people moving through the night air. One, was it was blowing the funk of the Colonial away from Rex's nose. The other one was that it was ripping off the now dried mud from Tyrol's overcoat and pants. Tyrol was doing everything he could think of, to divert his mind from thinking about how cold he was enduring. He did this so much and well. That, when the hover cycle slowed down, and settled back to the ground stopping all movement. It took him a few second for him to realize that they had stopped moving. As he was getting off the amazing machine, he looked down at it with the borrowed light amplifying goggles. He was wondered; would they let him take it apart? He wanted to see how it might work. With a slight shrug of his shoulders, "Well, you never know what the future might hold." He smiled for the first time in a long time to himself. He did not even reach for the flask in one of his pockets to take a sip, while he was led to a tent lento hidden amongst the massive trees in the deep dark woods.

That happiness lasted for all of about ten minutes, it was unplugged like a German Shepard caught in your laptops power cord. The new people that could not speak properly, had gestured for him to unpack the computer again from his civilian backpack. Just like they had done in the creek bed earlier in the night, only this time it was in operation a lot faster. They would each take turns speaking, and then reading what the other one's had to say. The portable machine was getting faster and better at the translations, the more time that they were using it. It was just something it was still having issues, when it was converting between the two languages it was currently working with. There had been three other people in the medium sized lento, all in some kind of armor and armed with odd looking things on their hips or over a shoulder with a weapons strap. What Tyrol thought of as weapons, looked like upgraded riles, with a side mounted optics, and an odd round area behind the trigger guards. He had no idea if he was right or not, and was not going to ask about them just yet. All of the weapons looked both sleek, high Tech, and deadly all at the same time. All of the weapons, and armor that he had seen so far, did not look anything like any Colonial weapons or gear. That he had seen or even heard about before. Tyrol could tell that the people around him looked, like they were capable of being fired by the strangers. It was how they carried the weapons and themselves. Veterans just carried weapons differently, than non-combat personnel did. One carried in a way that was comfortable first and for quick use secondary. The other type carried it for quick use first, and then learned to forget about the discomfort.

That was maybe why; he did not put up that much of a fuss. When they laid out strange cut, but fresh cloths and asked him to strip off his dirty ones. He knew that he need a bath, but to be worried about insects seemed a bit much. As he was thinking about, although, he had been told that he was going to meet with a member of their leadership. He again gave a shoulder shrug and stated to undress in the low tent. Well strange people had strange customs after all. Tyrol was starting to think and agree with both Colonel Tigh and Roslin, which that these people had been cut off from the rest of the tribes of man for a very long time. Possibly a very, very long time, maybe all the way back to the times of the original exodus from Kobal. He was fallowing the scout that had picked him up around like a puppy daggit in his new cloths. He could tell for almost certainly now that it was the same person, because that scout was the only one with the strange suite and face paint. He was thinking about the weapons there were carrying, as he fallowed the other man to a dark spot in the night. He all most run into the stopped scout, as the scout suddenly knelled down in front of the still walking Colonial.

Rex picked up what turned out to be a corner of a camouflaged cover, to revel another of those amazing, and at the same time terrifying low flying contraptions. Tyrol then saw that Rex had been carrying a package with his borrowed goggles. That package was his cloths, and he could see that they had been wrapped in a mesh of fine metal wires, in a Faraday Cage configuration. Like a bolt from one of the gods, he knew why they had wanted him to change clothes. They were not worried about insects or his cleanliness, but mini spying devices, which he might have been carrying knowingly or unknowingly with in there folds. These people were not taking very many risks, if they could avoid them. This was good in Tyrol's opinion, just as long as it did not get him killed by accident.

Rex put the hopefully safe from tracking devices cloths, in one of the saddle bag of his machine. The machines were almost identical the one that he had been using earlier in the night. But this one was different, because it had been owned by Rex for a few years. That had even been before they were dumped on this world after being attacked by a massive fleet of slave taking ships. Rex put his rifle in one scabbard and an extra C-12 Coalition States made weapon in the other scabbard. This additional weapon was in case he needed to arm the stranger that would be riding with him. Rex threw his leg over the cycle first, and made a few adjustments before waving the other man to join him on the ride. This hover craft would take them all the way to the main support camp. It was a lot farther drive, then the closer forward support camp, but that was where he had been told to take the package first. When the other man threw his leg over, and squeezed in behind Rex. He passed over to the Colonial, a flexible hose about inch in diameter that had three endings. One was in the hover cycle, the other was for Rex. Rex showed him how to insert the hose between two of the outer layers of clothes he was wearing. When Rex saw that the other man was ready. He started up the machine with only a push of a single button. Tyrol was surprised when warm air started to flow down the tube that seemed to be supplying both of them some much needed warmth for the ride to come.

The over loaded hover cycle charged threw the night and low to the ground. It was staying under the cover, provided by the trees overhead, just like the first part of the trip tonight. The glow of the nebula, stars, and moons where obscured by the cover provide by the tree tops. It was as the old saying went, "you could not see your hand in front of your own face dark." To make the trip stealthier, the hover cycle was not using any white lights or even IR beams to make any illumination. The on rushing terrain, so close to the travelers, it made the trip a frightening experience for the second uncomfortable rider. On the amazing device that was so far from the planet it had been made on. The passive Image intensifying googles were very short ranged. This gave little warning of close approaching trees. After about an hour into this leg of trip, Tyrol was about to ask a question that was now an itch in his fore brain. Tyrol wanted to know how the scout knew the right way to go at such a high rate of speed in this kind of darkness. Tyrol shifted his weight to lean in closer, but stopped when he saw a display lit on the central control panel. It was a map like display, which would only show up if you're where looking right at it, and had the goggles on. It was marking the way and when it showed an odd icon on the edge of the screen, it would get closer to the center of the screen. Then the cycle would make a turn to the left or right.

After a particularly sharp turn, the back seat passenger noticed the same icons from the screen, were painted on the sides of the trees they had made the turn at. It was almost at ground level, but he could only see it briefly as they blitzed passed the wood of a large tree stump. Tyrol was thinking that even if they had not painted them in low-light paint, it would be hard to see. That is unless you were right up on the tree and knew what to look for. With nothing to do but ride or hold on, and now that he was warm to the core. This was for the first time, since he had mustered out of the crew of the BattleStar Galatica. Tyrol just centered his mass on the cycle and tightens a newly added seat belt, and relaxed most of his body and mind. In a few minutes he was snoring softly, on the back of the black streak. As it moved through the trees at over 140 miles per hour, ten to thirty feet over the mud and root covered ground.

It took Rex almost three hours to make it to the main camp at full speed. He had taken a few of the last remaining stimulant pills, he owned, to keep him going. He was pushing almost twenty four hours of activity. He would pay for it latter, but he still had about two hours left for them to be effective. The sun was just coming up, when a guard in a NG-X9 Samson MK III suite stepped out from its camouflaged position. It challenged the racing hover cycle with raised weapons. That was all it needed to do, to communicate the implied threat if the hover cycle did not stop.

The person on the very back of the Turbo hover cycle did not even wake up. When the massive eleven foot tall and five foot wide war-fighting power armor stopped the hover cycle. The pair of manned craft did a quick challenge and password check. That had to be done before, Rex was allowed to continue on down the path that he had been fallowing all of these hours. It was another half hour of driving, until Rex pulled into the area of the camp he had been looking for. He was under one of the main covering netting's that had been put up to help conceal the growing support base. The area where he parked the cycle at was off to one side of the still growing base. Rex struggled for a second and then, pulled his tired body off the narrow profiled beast that was one of his most prized possessions. He was now thinking he might need to trade in the cycle, if he was going to be called in more often to be a taxi driver. Rex was checking out his machine to make sure he had not done any damage to it overnight, but he was thinking about something else. "I'm getting way too old to ride like that anymore. I'm not that young pup anymore." He starting doing some lower back stretches, when he noticed that his passenger had not gotten off the cycle yet. At first Rex was a little scared, that he had killed the guy on the high speed night ride. It was not like he had been taking it easy on either leg of this trip on the hover cycle. When Rex toke a couple of sets to get closer to the off planet visitor, and all he could do was smile a sly little smile. His internal ear picked up the light snoring coming from the man perched on the back of Rex's favorite ride. "Poor guy must have been completely wiped out; to sleep threw a ride like that. It was that, or I need to push a little harder next time." This popped into his mind, and an evil grin crossed his lips that no one could see.

Tyrol woke up with a start as a strange voice speaking a strange language, and a gloved hand started to shake his shoulder lightly. It only took a flash, for him to come out of his dream of being the Deck Chief for a BattleStar before the latest war with the cylons. Everything had been perfect back then, not this living nightmare he was brought back into. Tyrol wanted to hit the other man for ruining his perfect make-believe world where he had been clean, warm, and had plenty to eat. Then it came back to him, of why. He was there and who might be waking him up from his break from reality. That made his eyes shoot open, and his heart rate hit about hundred in the same length of time. He was every much awake, but still strapped to the strange hover narrow craft. His hands went to the "safety belt" around his lap and with a few fat finger movements it was undone. Tyrol with very stiff legs, half dragged and half fell off the transportation device. That Tyrol was thinking more and more that this thing was also a torture device of some kind.

Tyrol joined Rex in doing some stretching before they did much else. It was a good use of ten minutes, which might keep them out of the medic tent for a few days. Tyrol fallowed the scout, when he made a hand jester, into a large tent under some kind of concealment panels. The Scout passed Tyrol's pack that held the amazing computer to another person as soon as he entered the tent. Tyrol could tell right of the bat, that they had worked with this type of device before. Because they had the device in the middle of the table, and operational, in what seemed like no time at all. Rex had been quick when he used it last in the creek bed, but his hands had moved with some hesitation. Not these new people in the tent with them. The device was on the table and in operation in what seemed like a blink of an eye to Tyrol. He was impressed at their skill with high tech items. That was not the only high tech items in the tent. Armor and weapons were worn by everyone and when Tyrol got a glimpse of a few people crossing the tent opening. The still rising sun light showed the same was said, by everyone in the camp. It was only about five or six people that Tyrol could see, but it looked like these people were ready to fight.

Two other personnel, Tyrol was not sure it they were male or female were now standing near the entrance to the tent. That was because they also wore body armor form neck to foot. He just did not have any cultural or physical references to judge by. They had walked into tent carrying plates of food and hot drinks, what was the most important thing for his mind to get wrapped around. They placed the food near two different empty chairs, then left the room without saying a word to anyone at some unknown signal. When Tyrol smelled the strange looking food and drinks, his stomach let the whole room know. That it would like to be filled right now please or I'm not going to let anyone talk over it. Tyrol did not know the protocol, but we was wishing that he could just sit down and feed his face. He was looking at the food so hard that he did not notice a new person had enter the tent. A tall man in strangely cut combat uniform walked in behind the Colonial man. Tyrol could feel him, like when Adama or Tigh would walk up behind him on the deck. That is once they got within about five feet of him. Tyrol turned and looked at who was walking up behind him.

Tyrol head spun his body at the "sensed" body and watched the commander; he had the barring of a senior officer. Just like the elder Adama had in a full spades. Tyrol was sure this one was male and when he spoke it had the pitch of a male, deep but not to threatening, yet. "Why don't we sit down?" He pointed to one of the chairs as he said the words. The compute on the table repeated in text, what the man had said, in passable Caprican. Tyrol knew what was said, and what was offered. But it still took him a few seconds to possess how it had been done. He was having a hard time, believing it. He was going to be the first person to person contact with the strangers that shared the planet with what remained of the Colonies of Kobal. Who would have thought he would be doing something like that even a few days ago.

Now that Tyrol knew what was going on, he took the offered seat. And the smell of the now closer hot food made his stomach sound off again. The other man sat across form Tyrol, and picket up strange utensils from one side of the off white plates. There were a matching set on his tray, but Tyrol was keeping one eye on the amazing computer on the table.

The military commander started talking just as Tyrol was picking up the eating utensil. "I know it's early, but why don't we take care of two things at once. This thing should work, even if we are eating and talking at the same time." He pointed at the computers that now had a video playing dual screen, one with the commander and one with Tyrol's face on it. That was not in the simple instructions that the Colonials had worked out. Tyrol had reviewed them and received a short class given by Roslin before he had left. It was expected that he might need to use it sometime during the mission. This little computer had been the fire to get him to take this mission in the first place, and how he knew it had a lot more tricks than what he had knew it could do. He was again impressed with the little portable computer, but he did not want to think about the hover craft of death.

As Tyrol was starting cut in something with grill marks on its flesh, when he other man continued to talk. "This is not our normal morning meal that I was brought up eating, but we have had to do some major adapting to his new world. Today we have orange-pears, grilled fish cakes, and a local plant that has caffeine in it. That one took a while, but now we can make a coffee or tea like drink out of it. It's not as good as the real thing back home, but it does help with the cold and damp in the morning. By the way I'm Major Weston, and My Bosses need to find out about your people before we decide to help you are not." Major Weston stop talking and Tyrol could hear the tone of voice had changed a little at the end. After a short pause the Major stated talking again. "I will tell you about my people in return, so that way you're people can decide for themselves. If they want our help or not. We are not going to force you to take our help, so if you don't want it. That is going to be fine with my people." Tyrol let the "Major" talk and watched the words play across the screen. It was a lot to take in a so short amount of time. So much so, he forgot to put food in his mouth a few times.

For the rest of the morning and continued through the after mid-day meal, the two talked about cylons, genocide, and running for their lives. The Major talked about fighting dragons, rifts, and other magic, with evil slavers thrown into the mix for some extra spice. Major Weston had extensive image clips of the various monsters that they had caught on tape by the crew, news reports, and other sources. Major Weston was happy they had been sent out with a note attached on why. This was to show the Colonial that it was not a joke. It was hope that these images would prove that the Major was not making it up for some reason. Tyrol did not have as much to prove what he was saying, but he did get the Majors attention on a few points. That was when he brought up about the cylons being able to download into a new body when they died. Major Weston had Tyrol go into as much detail has he could, about the cylon Raider called Scar. He had to go over twice about how it had become a better fighter, after it was brought back to life a few times.

Tyrol also went into as much detail as he could about the human form cylons. The Colonials had been able to learn quite a bit about them. That is since, they had taken over the landing field that had been his home. He also brought up, toward the end of his story. About the strange message they had been given just the other day. It had been about how a Centurion had been hit with a lightning bolt of some kind three times. The massive amount of damage had made it had received was supposed to have been impressive. And according to the note, the damage had made it so, that it had not able to down load into another Centurion hull. He told them that it happened on the same day that they had been given the strange computer. Tyrol had said that this was the first report, of something like this happening to a cylon. When pushed by the Major for more information about this even. Major Weston did not elaborate on why he was so interested in the event. That had been right before Tyrol had been told, that the medics wanted to do a medical check-up, before they gave him any more food.

While Tyrol was being checked out by the medics, Major Weston went to find Rex. He wanted to see what had happened from his point of view. When that tin man had gotten the drop on him, that day in that oh so compromising situation. Weston had read the report, but now it might be very important to the future of combating these machines. He was thinking that all of those jokes and ribbing, he had been getting over the last few days might have been in error. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than good. And there were some people who were going to have a member of the Rock family for their next meal. That is if it turned out to be true.

Rex was racked out in his small field tent with a set of head phones on. All the while he was lying in his half opened sleeping bag dead to the outside world. The Major had to grab the scouts sleeping bag covered legs to wake him. This was done by picking up the tan colored bag, lifting four or five inches and then letting it fall back to the ground. This was considered the safest way to wake a military person. Than so quick a snake would have been envious. The scout came out of the sleeping bag with a sidearm pointed right at the Major's chest. When Rex was awake enough to answer questions, and not about to shoot someone. The Major asked him to repeat the whole chain of events about him and the metal war-machine a few days ago. When he found out what weapon he had used, the Major was able to get the weapon for a little show and tell. Rex told him about shooting the metal machine three times, twice in the chest and once in the maybe head. This matched nicely with the "three lighting strikes that Tyrol had talked about. When Rex went back to sleep, he had replaced the missing Ion pistol, with a loaded Bandit BigBore Revolver under his thin pillow. He was back to snoring before the Major was out of ear shot. This time he did not have the head phone speakers covering his ears.

After the medics completed their time with this Tyrol person, he was cleared by them. He was to have some private time to eat another, but a little larger and much need meal. The medics were even able to grind up some supplements, to help with some growing issues of malnutrition. That looked to be starting into his food, without him noticing the difference. The Major was not sure he wanted to mess with the other man's food, without him knowing about it. But the medics said it was harmless, and more importantly tasteless. When Major Weston re-entered the tent after doing some reports that had a short deadline, the other man had finished the larger meal. To Weston's eyes it seemed that he was about ready to go into a food comma any second. This was a premeditated calculation on the Majors part, and he was not showing a smile as he took a seat. He was hoping that any mental defense would be lower with an onset of the food comma. Between that, and the lack of deep sleep he should be harder to lie about very much. It was a case of dirty pool, but so was risking all of your people lives on a planet. To what a stranger had to say, without any proof. At the last second Major Weston changed his mind on a key item.

"Mr. Tyrol why don't we go for a walk, I think we need a change of venue while your food settles a bit. Todd would you please being the chatter box." The young man that had been one step behind the Major picked up the battery supplied computer. With a few quick hand movements, he was turning the screen down and locking it into place and now it would not be broken off easily. The system would still working, but the two images would not play, but the audio would translate whatever it was able to pick up on its mike, and display in two languages in a text format.

As Tyrol fallowed beside the Major outside. It was brighter outside, than in the tent but it still was not full sun outside. He was impressed with the hidden camp, as the three men walked around the covered area. It was like a high tech version, of what Starbuck's husband had described to him a year ago. It seem a lot like the one that he had operated out of after the fleet had been destroyed. That had been back when he had been running operations against the cylons, back home. He had been leading hit and run raids centered on a core group of his fellow sports team.

When Tyrol first saw some of the machines in the short row of power armor in a holding area, his heart rate went through the roof. He had been looking for a place to run, like a rabbit in a foxes den. Until he saw someone started to unstrap the armor he had been wearing and that calmed him down somewhat. Tyrol had said it was like someone strapping on a dead Centurion to the other two men. He was having trouble not getting the shakes and skin crawling to stop, as his mind tried to process what he was seeing. Why anyone would want to do something like that, much less willingly to do it? He brought it up to the escorting officers. It took a few times of repeating the question, but eventually he got the idea across to the two none Colonial people.

Major Weston thought about what the stranger was saying for a few seconds. Then gave the other man a frame of reference of what he was seeing in the storage lot. "No, it's more like they are strapping on a walking early generation combat tank. And it has the firepower to take out a hundred of those same generation tanks or those metal Centurions here. Not all at once, but in groups of a dozen or so at a time it would win. The Cylons are going to wish, they had a suit of that stuff. When or if we drop the hammer on them." Weston had a flash in his mind, of how one of those battles might take place. It did not work out very well for the metal cylons.

Tyrol was watching the other man as closely as he could, without feeling that he was being rude. This man was too young to be a Major to Tyrol's eyes, but he had that look of someone who had seen a lot of combat already. But he did not have the burned out look, like a lot of the Viper jocks had when they made planet fall. Tyrol did not think that the eleven foot tall monster was stronger than a Centurion. Much less a hundred of them, but there was something in the way he was holding that old bulky pistol. Maybe they were full of hot air, or maybe they just had not fought the horror that was fighting the cylons was like. Then something seemed to click in the other man, and sly smile was on his face without him even knowing it was there. It was like the stranger was reading his mind, or more likely his body language.

"Mr. Tyrol let me show you something." Major Weston pointed to the edge of the camp, and started walking in that direction at a little faster pace than before. He said something to the younger solider following them that the little computer did not catch. The young man moved out at a faster walk in front of the two other slower and older walking men. He had taken the little computer with him, so nothing else was said between them as they walked to the other side of the camp.

Once they were there at the edge of the camp, two men could see a line of six large stumps of the local hard wood. They were about six feet in diameter each laid out before them in a row from left to right. Major Weston tuned to look at the visiting man. They younger man with the computer had returned with the text screen showing. "Mr. Tyrol you said that the tin men that was put down the day we smuggled our translation device into you camp. Well it was the one that Rex shot on the way out from the wood cutting area. You said that it was hit three times, and it was made completely combat effective. You also said that it also somehow stopped it from being reloaded into another fresh combat body." He watched the fighter mechanic, and one time deck boss nod his head up and down and to say that he understood the words.

Major Weston saw the head nod, but he had doubts that this person really understood everything he was reading on the little computer screen. Weston pulled out a weapon from the small of his back, where his belt had been keeping it out of sight. He now had in front of him and was showing it to the visitor and started talking again. "We call this a Northern Gun made Heavy Ion Pistol, and this is what Rex said that he used on your metal walking war-machine that afternoon." He pulled the pistol like weapon out of its holster and rotated it so that the other man could get a good look at the device. "It is a very powerful weapon, don't get me wrong. But it is class only as a secondary weapon or sidearm among my people. This weapon is in fact as powerful as some of our lighter combat rifles, but of course the rifles have a longer combat range than this little hand held weapon." The Major looked around and yelled to the local area in general "Fire in the hole!" Then he took aim using a classic two handed pistol firing stance, and looked down to line up the sights at the nearest large stump. Major Weston pulled the trigger one time.

Tyrol was watching the man, the screen, and had just enough time to see the Major get into a position that Tyrol knew well from his training. Then he heard a soft whine, that was then fallowed a soft crack from the pistol like weapon. Then out of the corner of one eye, Tyrol saw what looked like a bit of ball lightning flying thru the air, and impacting the flat topped wood stump about thirty feet away. There was not so much a fire ball, as an expanding wave of wood fragments, dirt, and well call it hot air that was once a hardwood stomp. The Colonial just watched the falling wood fragments start to settle out of the air. When the air cleared again, the stomp plus about two feet of wood below the ground level was simply gone. The small hand help weapon had been almost silent when it had been activated, fired was just not the right word. It was the results that were ear busting.

Tyrol was stunned by the sound of the stump going away to just so much sawdust and bright flash of light. Then he realized that to do the same amount of damage, which he had just witnessed. It would have taken a crew served weapon, or a Viper KEW, or a counter missile cannons on a spaceship. "What the guy had said, was that this was just expected to be a backup weapon? Good gods!" Thought Tyrol to himself, but something else popped out of his mouth without his brain stopping it. His face went white, he knew it and stared talking and the words just fell out of his mouth in a tidal wave. "Wait! Did you say that it is an ION based weapon? Does it project the IONs in a stream or something? It's a direct energy weapon that is also hand held? How in the Frak can you do that? The power requirement are huge." The last part that fell out of his mouth was in shear disbelief. And the tone he had used carried that disbelief into the air. Back home they had been talking about weapons like that for longer than he could remember and he had a good memory. In fact weapons just like that were the hallmarks of cheap bathroom reading, and not used for fighting the cylon armies in the real world. It was just crazy talk.

Major Weston was all smiles as he listened to the other man ramble on. When he had stopped talking and took a breath. It gave Major Weston time to read most of what was being said. He showed the other man where the E-clip went into the weapon, and how to remove and then replace it. "Yes, and you get about six shots of so with an E-clip this size. Do you want to fire it? I will have to return it to Rex, with a fresh E-clip anyway so we mind as well use it up." Weston flipped the weapon in his hand. So that he was holding it by the barrel with the butt and grip of the weapon pointed to the Colonial. Who was standing there with his mouth swinging open in the wind? It was an amazing show of trust that the major was giving him. Most would say that it was borderline, bat shit crazy level show of trust to be given this soon.

Both of Tyrol's hands almost broke the sound barrier reaching for the offered weapon. He was not a ground pounder who like hand held weapons. But he knew something about all types of weapons and the weapons technologies both in the practical and theoretical fields. With the ION pistol in his hands, he stared evaluating it with what he knew. First off the weapon was a bit on heavy side, at six or seven pounds. That was heavy for a combat pistol in the Colonial Military, but fit his big hands very well. He flexed his wrist and waved the weapon a little to gauge the mass and weight distribution of the weapon, it was not bad just a little different. He took a two handed grip, sighted down the notch and blade sites on the top of the barrel. He locked on a second stump, and fired by pulling a standard looking trigger. Two things came to the forefront of Tyrol's brain all at once. First was that the weapon had very little recoil, and almost no report when it fired from his very steady hands. He did not have any ear protection on, and he did not have even the slightest ringing in them after the weapon fired. That would be a huge advantage all by itself, at least medically speaking.

The second thing that Tyrol noticed was that he had been expecting recoil when he had fired the weapon. It should have been like when you fired the under barrel High Explosive round from the service issued pistol, so his aim was a little high. The affect was the same on the target between twenty and thirty feet from him. That being the stump was gone in flash of bright light and cloud of smoke. He had been aiming at the base of the target where the tree stump and ground meet. The sound of the stump coming apart was louder that the discharge of the little weapon in his hands by a few orders of magnitude. He fired a second round, just to make sure that it was not a single shot weapon. Being single shot was not that bad of issue. If that one shot took a Centurion, you would work around anything else. He knew Colonel Tigh would give up his favorite still. For a one shot and one kill, of a Centurion that he could put in everyone's hands that wanted one.

This time Tyrol hit the base of the third wood stump, with the same results as his first firing by Major Weston. He wanted to shot the weapon till it was empty, but that would have been wasteful in his mind. One of the things that had been drilled into him, since the fall of the 12 Colonies of Man, is that you did not waste anything. Tyrol but the weapon back on safe, just like he had been shown by the Major. He passed the very destructive device back to the Major, very reluctantly but he did hand it back over.

Tyrol looked at the "leader" and then step closer to the translation computer before he started speaking. "Major that was an impressive display for a hand gun. But a wood stump, even one of the very tough local trees, is not nearly as tough as Cylon made Centurion armor. I don't really know how it would fare against the real thing." Tyrol held up both of his hands in defensive, he did not want to cause offence to these strangers if he did not have to. "I know what that one report has said, but it is only one report. I was told to make sure you understand that it was only one report and we don't know how good it is." He did not want to get that deep into that it was maybe, a false report from there end or these strangers with the DEW. He also did not want to get his hopes up and set on miracle weapons. The loss of hope had killed a lot of people after the cylons had been done with them.

The Major gave the other man a knowing smile, as he put the weapon in his belted waist of his camouflaged paints. "We are working on figuring that out, but let's finish our tour." That was how they spent the rest of the time, walking around the little mud lane camp. The camp was a lot nicer and cleaner, than what the settlement the Colonials had set up around there grounded spaceships. It showed that these people still had bride and self-respect. That was something a lot of the Colonials had lost in the fleeing from their home planets.

Tyrol was back in the first tent, where he had eaten again after the walking tour. Someone had moved the table to one side, and put a fold up/out cot against one side of the tent. This had been done while he had been out walking around the camp with this escorts. He was laying on the cot now. It was not the most comfortable bed he had ever had, but it was better than what he had slept on for the last year or so in his little shack. He was reflecting and reviewing on everything that he had seen in this camp today. He and the others back in New Caprica, were hoping that these people were an outpost. Maybe for a larger group of humans on another planet close by. The video they all seen, had told them that they were marooned on this planet for some time now. But the Colonial leadership, had hoped that it was just these people, hiding on this planet, were playing it close to the chest with some facts. He now knew better, and he was unsure how that was going to affect things for his people and their fight against the cylons. These marooned strangers had some very high tech items like the handheld directed energy weapons, the high damaged resistant metals, and the powered suits. But they also had to make due with a lot of low tech things for day to day function. The communication lines he had seen, and the homemade wooden cased telescope were almost as shocking to see as the ION weapons. They were so old school as to almost think it was a joke, and then you compared them to the directed energy weapons that not only existed but were man portable? It would make a man like Tyrol's head hurt and his ears wanted to bleed.

Tyrol had to give his head a little shake at the thought of the rickety looking telescope. It was amazing that they could get images so sharp from the rickety telescope. In those images they could make out that the cylon's had four baseships in orbit above the planet. That was information that the Colonials did not have in their hands. They also had images of both the Bucket and the Beast before they had left the system. He did not think that this Major liked the answer they got from him, when they asked what happened to those two massive warships. He did not know what had happened to those two Battlestars on that day, and as far as he knew. No one knew what happened to them. Or to the other ships that were in orbit over the planet. When the cylons showed up out of the blue and started shooting at them again. He was able to review and fill in some more information about the human form cylons, which he had not mentioned before in the first interview. The code names they had come up with where pretty good for the human form cylons. They had been calling them clones and he had to explain the differences, as he knew them. Calling a Number One an Old Man was good, but calling a Number Two a Psycho? Well that was to perfect, and they did not even have any one on one time with him to come up with the name. He started to softly chuckle at that thought, maybe there were gods out there after all.

Tyrol was betting that those names would stick around a lot longer than the numbers the cylons used to identify themselves with would. When they told him at they were calling a Number Three, a Liar, he about wet himself. When he stopped laughing and the tears had stopped flowing. He had told them that they had found a Number Three, which had been undercover as a new reporter in the refugee feet. They thought it was funny as all Frak also and jointed him and abusing ears in laughing. There were calling the Number Fours Baldie because none of them had they had seen had hair so far. That one was okay in his book, but not as funny as some of the others. The Number Fives were referred as Boy type, because it had what they called a baby face. The last part of the group of cylons were all female. They were given the names for the hair color, which most of them used. So a Number Six's were called Blondie and the Number Eights were called brunettes. Those weren't the most funny, but they did the job he guessed as a classifying system. He was thinking about what to say or what not to tell them, about the missing models cylons. Had been surprised that the Major had picked up on the missing numbers so quickly. He knew half a dozen Colonials that still had not realized that there were missing cylon types. He thought that might be best handled at a higher level meeting, a lot later on down the road. This was only the first meeting and exchange of information. With that last thought, he was just about to fall back to sleep, when the Major walked back into the tent.

The Major made sure the translator computer was on, before he sat down next to the now sitting up "Colonial" on the field cot. "Mr. Tyrol, so we understand that the plan is. Your leadership worked out for you to fallow. That is if things worked out between my people and you. It was that you would catch a ride back into the camp of yours, by being under that truck on the next wood cutting trip. Is that right? That is in what, two days? If these cylons as you call them keep to the schedule, they had published threw this Baltar fellow."

Tyrol was wondering where this line of questioning was going and it showed on his face. "Yes sir that was the plan. But from the look on your face. I'm thinking you have a different ideas, or something." For a brief second Tyrol thought these people might be thinking about putting him in a cell somewhere. "I have some very important people waiting, to find out what is going on out here. I need to let my people know what is going on, so that they can plan better." Tyrol waved this arm to gesture to the whole camp but he was very uncomfortable. He was hoping that he was not about to be kidnapped, or something along those lines of disappearing him. While he had been on the death machine, he had wondered if one of the reasons he had been asked. While he had been thinking he was about to die. Did Colonel Tigh send he because, he was expendable in the eyes of the leadership that was trying to avoid the Centurion and there human looking masters.

The Major made a face that Tyrol could not decipher. "Yea my bosses would like to change that also." Major Weston saw the other man's back straighten as he read the screen. "That is getting information to your people in the camp. You said that you were the one in charge of working on the fighter craft before you got out of your peoples Military service over a year ago? I think you called them Vipers?

Tyrol nodded in agreement, and was trying work out were this was going but his brain to mouth interrupt switch broke. "Vipers and Raptors. The gunship and troop carriers version of the Raptor. If it few? I worked on it at one time or another in my life. I was also the deck boss for one of our warships." He stopped talking realizing that he had just given them enough reason, not to let him go back to his people. He was mentally kicking himself for losing to many brain cells.

Major Weston reviewed the translated statement on the screen. He gave the rumpled looking man a quick nod, but he was not smiling. "That kind of knowledge could be useful to us." He could see the other man take a breath, and Weston was sure he was going to argue about not contacting his people. Major Weston let a small smile cross his face. He wanted to defuse the situation. "I have just been directed, by my superiors. To make contact with all of the Colonials as you call them, and groups of Colonials. That were able to escape when the cylons landed or were not otherwise not in the main camp when you were invaded. If they want to, we will bring them back to this camp for all the support we can give them. If they don't want to come into the camp, then they can remain out on their own. The idea is not to pressure them in anyway. We printed up a note in your dialect. It will be telling them about what is going on, and if they would like a safer place to live."

Major Weston stopped talking so that the Tyrol could catch up reading what was on the screen, because the next part was very important. When Tyrol looked up from the screen with a huge grin on his face, Weston dropped the hammer. "As long as they obey our rules. Then they are welcome at this camp. We will give then medicine, food, a semi warm and dry place to stay and rest. But that is only as long as they obey our rules and laws. If they don't want to do that, then off they can go back into tree line. If we can prove that we can work together, than we can see about giving up some of our weapons. That is later after we judge things to be working out. I was told to bring the weapons thing up to you, and your leadership. It will not happen right now or easily. We know what happens if you trust the wrong people to early. I don't think either of our people can afford that mistake."

The major stopped talking again, letting the word sink into the other man. "When your people start coming over out of the woods, I would like you to talk with them first. My command thinks that if the one of them, can sneak back in. With our help, that would be better for the overall war effort than sending you back in. Just think about it, and let me know. You don't have to answer right now." Major Weston rose from the chair was starting to leave the tent, then turned around one last time. "If anyone else comes in tonight, we are going to be using this tent as their new home. We only have one of those translation computers, so we will keep in here with your people. That is unless someone else needs it to translate for them, and has more rank than me." Weston tone was light, but had a hard bite of an edge to it at least to Tyrol's ear. Even if he did not know the meaning of the words. That is until he picked them up from the translation computer, still sitting on the wooden table.

Major Weston left the other man alone again, so that he could finally get some sleep. He hoped that they would get the first of these "Colonial" escapees in sometime tonight. All of the ones they had found, so far were a good distance from the guarding metal cylons. It should be safeish enough, that he wanted to make contact with the Colonials. Without the metal monsters finding out the contact. He had set out a team of two hover cycles, and David's commander's car. To help get them back to this camp both fast and safely. While Step One was being worked, he had to get the next phase ready a lot earlier than he had thought he would need it. He had a local leadership meeting to attend, and he was not sure how it was going to play out. He knew that the Triumvirate would be having the same type of meeting, near Warehouse One. Major Weston went to get him some hot food. That was because, he did not think he would have very much extra time later today, to throw something down his throat. If he did not do it now, he had a feeling that he was going to be short any free time or sleep for that matter. In the near future.

A little over an hour later, the Major walked into another tent on the other side of the main support camp from the shooting range. There were already over twenty people waiting on him, to pop in and brief them on the changing threat. After pressing the flesh to a few people in the tent on the way to the front. He explained everything they now knew about these Cylons and Colonials. He would repeat to the group many times, that there were always three sides to every story. He also covered how the Cylons could "down load" into a new "body" after they were combat killed. He made sure that everyone in the tent, understood that these Cylons. Would retain all the knowledge they had gained up unto, when they were put in the new bodies. He covered how the first war started, between the machines and the men who created them. He covered how new war had started with the surprise attack, and the nuclear carpet bombing from orbit of a dozen habitable worlds that killed 20 billion people. He also covered the medical camps, they had found when they went back to find some survivors and critical intelligence on their home planets. The group of people that had come from Rifts Earth were a hard people. And use to hearing about all kinds of things happening in every day lift that would have made a person from the 21st century puke up a lung. They had seen and lived through uncounted and unbelievable horrors, but this information was a body blow to them. Major West now could see their anger was building against these strange machines on the planet, they were now calling home. Before he closed the meeting he passed on one more bit of information to the group. He knew that it would make it to the ears of anyone who had not been in the meeting tent that day.

Major Weston looked around the tent at every face there. It would make them fell that he was talking to a person and not the group. "Look People. We need to find more information before the Triumvirate would fully declare War on the Cylons. They will need you people, to go find that information for them. That does not mean that these so called cylons were safe to just walk around in the wilds. This race of smart machine likes to play the terror card, when they were fighting a war. Now this branch of the human race, would show the machines or cylons what terror really was. People it is open season on any cylon patrol, which anyone can find out there." The people under Weston's command, were ordered that if they did attack? They needed to take them all down as quick as they could. They were to leave none moving on the battlefield when they were done. He told them that, so far only ION based weapons had been effective in given them a "True Death". So the order was, only engage them with those types of weapons if it was possible. He then told them to bring some of the Tin heads or Centurions, back to camp. When he was ask why, they were being directed to do that? He told that, it was so that they could do weapons test on metal. He wanted to see how tough there armor was against laser and rail gun weapons, in a more controlled setting. If they could capture a human form, they were told to hurt it, but not to kill it. But only if they could do it without risking their own lives. The higher command wanted the intelligence, they might be able to get for the human looking cylons. It was just not worth any of their lives to get it.

The main return questions after that was about the rules for any engagements, any why they were only supposed to attack, if they were sure to take all of the cylons out. The Major explained that they did not want the enemy to know who or what was out in the wilds hunting the metal murders. They were not, under any circumstances to attack the main detainment camp with the grounded space ships. If you take out a Tin Head and cannot bring back the carcass? That is not a big deal, but they could be creative in "how they left it behind". The idea is that they will give these cylons a little taste of the "Terror Game." The smile Weston gave the group would never have been called friendly. "We are still running under the ECCOM rules, but you are authorized a one week hunting license with no bag limit. But you will need to be back in this camp seven days from sunrise tomorrow. That is in case, we have a ROE change. Do be careful with your ammunition, we still cannot make replacements for what you shoot threw. Do we have any questions?" There were very few question form the group, as Major Weston stopped speaking. This was going to be the most excitement that they had had, since the come down off the high that setting up the Settlement those years ago, had gave them.


	12. Chapter 12 Chapter 7 Opening Moves

**Chapter 7 Opening moves**

 **New Caprica,**

 **675 Days after the Fall of the Colonies,**

 **3 years 2 month 05 days AT**

The Number One called John was livid, as he stormed around the open converted maintenance bay of the temporary building that he had ordered built. This was the only building his people had put on this mud ball, to be the cylon ground based headquarters. The reason that he was pacing back and forth across the prefab concrete floor? Was that over the past three days a dozen Centurions had been destroyed, and another three were listed as simply missing. That is to say not Missing in Action, but just plain old missing. How the Frak could a cylon Centurion go missing! Much less the three that had manage to do just that feat, even with built in locator beacons. This was beyond him, but somehow the missing warmachines had done a bang up job of doing it.

John threw up his hand toward the ceiling high over his head, in a very human jester of frustrations that he did not notice he had done. The only reason he, and the rest of the cylons knew about the destroyed cylons? Was that the hulks had been found by other patrols, which had been working the same areas as the destroyed units. Some of his brothers were still smoking, from the damage that had ruined them. When they had been found in the forest outside of the area called New Caprica by the humans and cylons alike. And on top of all of that? Amazingly nothing had been recorded by the nearest cylon's extremely sophisticated detection systems. It was like the hand or maybe a finger of god had come down, and removed them from existence as they walked the surface of the planet. While it had been doing this little trick to the cylons on patrol, it had not made as much as a fraking fart when it had happened. The main concern, was not that these few metal minions were now no longer combat effective. It was that none of them, to including the missing ones, had been able to down load in the resurrection tanks. Now there was no way to let him know, what the Frak had happened to the Centurions in the first place. The only thing he knew for a fact, was that the hulks that they had found. They all had the same type of damage done to them, as the very first Centurion that had been found over a week ago. That had been found lying wrecked under the silent tan and green living giants

All of the hulks had looked like they had been standing too close to the Jump coil, when it was discharged in an interstellar engines. This was unacceptable to the cylons of the line known as the One's. Something was going on, and he had no clue what was causing it. This was an affront to the core of his very psyche, the Number One called John could not let it stand. The Twos and the Threes were starting to call it an act of god, but the Ones' knew there was not a real god. This left only the humans, they must be doing it somehow. He was positive of it, but he was just short of any bit of proof or anything remotely like evidence to back up this idea. The One called John had just today, ordered larger, and more frequent patrols on the ground and in the air. They were to look for the humans that must have escaped, when his forces had landed on that first day of occupation. "They could not have gotten that far away, if they were still launching attacks against him" thought the One. This was as he paced around the room, and working on putting a grove into the concrete like floor beneath his feet. Maybe he should take a walk in the mud village the humans had set up? He could use the time to see if he could find some kind of diversion within the camp. That was all the meat bags were really good for in his mind. That is until he could get a vote to have all of the humans killed on the mud ball, they were living on. So with a smile on his face, the Number One sometimes called John, left the three story tall ugly prefab, Colonial Military made building. John went looking for something to take his mind of the enigma of what was happing to his patrolling Centurions. That were out of line of sight of these grounded human made spaceships. "Maybe I will stop over and see that fool Baltar. I'm sure he would have some pretty little thing almost undress by now. If I time it right, I can catch him at the perfectly wrong time…for him. John had always found that it had been fun, and spirit lifting to slap him around some before." These were some ideas that were seeping into the One's head as he left the cold building. Now the smile was bigger on the old man's face. People from Colonial ships rushed to get out of his way. As the human from cylon walked in the mud streets, intent on his destination deeper into the field of landed spaceships.

Meanwhile a little over three hundred miles away from the Cylon controlled prison under a protective covering. The six missing Centurions, or at least there parts. Were on display at a dirt firing range near the main support camp that had been set up by the people from Earth. A group of onlookers were checking the results of the latest rounds of weapons testing against those almost human shaped metal parts. What remained of the metal bodies of the Centurions, were being used to see how strong the armor plate was. This was as close as they could get to have what scientist called a "Controlled Environment".

The first round of weapons testing had been done only by the Ion based hand held weapons. The thicker armored located in the Centurion's chest area, had not proved to be resistant too many of the weapons hits. And it did not matter the size of the hand held human weapon that was fired at it. The armor covering just was not strong enough to protect the sensitive insides of the Centurions for the high tech weapons from Earth. The on looking crowd was mostly made up of the dozen or so Colonial personnel, which were still coming to grasp the changing world around them. They wanted to see what the weapons technologies of these new comers might be able to do with their own eyes. They had heard rumors from dozens of people since they had trickled in to the camp. "But seeing was believing" as the old saying goes. Then again after seen the damage from a few hand held weapons, they all were not sure that they could believe their eyes.

When the plasma weapons were fired after inspecting and evaluating the damage from the first firings, whole sections of the Centurions were evaporated. They were going from solid to gas in an eye blink or faster. The first shot had been at 200 feet between weapon and target, and the targeted metal leg was there one second. In a flash later, the fireball blasted the limb into its component atoms in a flash and blink of an eye. The target simply went from sold to an expanding bit of hot but cooling quickly gas. All before the on looker's eyes could get over the flash of the plasma ball discharged from the rifle like weapon. It was an impressive show of force that was not lost on the very beaten Colonial personnel. Centurions had been the gauge of how you should measure firepower and armored protection for so many generations. That it was taken as a given by the mouth of their gods, that they were the panicle of tough and firepower in the universe. What they saw, was now calling that line of thinking into questions. It was both enjoyable and freighting at the same time.

All of the Colonials had been disbelieving of the Direct Energy Weapons that Tyrol had told them about at the first meetings. So when the same effect that would have taken a fixed mounted weapon, had been produced using the silent laser rifles with a single shot. Let's just say that the Lords of Kobal were invoked with a great vigor and a loud volume. The firing range was running out of targets, when pair of Rail gun rifles were used, on what was left of the three metal machines made by other cylons. Rail gun technology was known to Tyrol, and a few of the others in what remained of the Colonials, they just called them Coil guns. This type of technology was used in the huge bow mounted cannons on the Pegasus, as well as her smaller secondary's weapons mounts mounted on her top and bottom. It was also used in the primary weapons turrets on the top and bottom of the older Battlestars Galatica. But having that same technology scaled down to what a man could carry? The importance was lost on most of the Colonials in this little group. But not on Tyrol, and some of the others with more military tech experience in the days to come. Even before the weapons testing had been complete. Major Weston was already receiving messages. They were pleading for these new weapons, to fight the Colonial's enemy and as they saw it the enemy of mankind. With each request that crossed he Major's wooden desk. He had to reply that he was waiting on guidance from his leadership. And that the requesters would have to wait for higher command responded. It would buy him some time, and it also just happened to be the truth. It just got very old, that he had to say it to every group that came in, and sometimes he had to tell them more than twice. With a shrug of his shoulders he thought. "But that was also why he was paid the big bucks."

Major Weston did pass on each of the request to Safe Harbor Bay. Along with his wish for them to be granted, or some other idea passed down to him. So far all of the Colonials that had been in hiding, were very poorly armed. That is if they were armed at all, and the less you said about their body armor the better. He also sent a requested for a selection of some of the lower powered conventional weapons and ammunition to be set forward to his location. That written note had gone out a few days ago and would take some time before anything would be done about the request. In fact he had sent it right after he had let the wolves off the chain. This was so, that with the help of Tyrol or other Colonials with combat experience. They could be used to judge the lower powered weapons effect vs. what damage a Colonial weapons were known to be able to do against the walking metal beast. The idea was "why bring a sledge hammer, when a pillow would work just as well". His last updates from his Bosses were a set of written orders. He had been given another week to run "open season" operations against the cylon ground patrols. But he was told that he could not attack any of the increasing number of "Raiders" and "Heavy Raiders" over flying the area, near the Colonial ships. That had been the only change to the rules of engagement Mike Weston had given to his people. This pleased him to no end, to be proven right.

While he was talking to the Settlement earlier on the landline, he passed along the best guess, on the armor capabilities of the Centurions. This had been what the Stapps had been able to come up with so far. They wanted to make sure that if it was passed along? That it was only a guess that they had worked out. That is, until a better equipped lab could set up, and rerun the test on some more of the off planet armor samples. The group of rogue scientists had concluded that the chest and head areas, to include the neck guard. Were equal, to about six or eight on the standard Modern Damage Charts (MDC) charts. The legs and arms were lighter at maybe three to five on the MDC charts. So far what they could work out was that the chrome like finishes on the metal warmachines, did not adversely affect energy weapons to a discernable degree. Weston passed along that if they had better testing equipment, they could find out to the erg if this was true are not. It was enough information to give them some information to start working up some plans, but only a start.

Weston already had samples of the Centurion's electronics being rushed back to the two ships, so far from his command. There some of the experts back there, could check them out, and gauge their value in the ship on board repair shops. He even sent back one of the triple barreled arm mounted light machine guns. It was complete with the ammunition that they had pulled out of two of the metal warmachines. The ammunition had been sent backed down in a separate create from the strange triple mounted Light machine gun. He had one group of gun enthusiasts working on a test rig using the barrels from a second machine gun mount. This second weapon would allow them to test fire one round at a time, right here at his camp. Instead of waiting for the same information to make its way back to them, they would have it a lot faster. He needed to know how much damage these weapons could put out against the different types of armor, which this people had brought to this cold world. So far they had found three different looking types of rounds loaded in the limited space in the arms of those walking machines. The people from Earth found out early on, that each of the three guns only had 220 rounds per gun ready to fire. Everyone who had seen it had remarked that it was an amazing good job, of packing those rounds into the limited space. It looked like each barrel and weapon had its own feeding and supply system. Right now, it was thought that this might be a survival design feature, in case one weapon was damaged or somehow jammed in combat. Major Weston's people had not been able to crack one of the rounds open, and not have it detonate on them, yet. Another attempted was planned for another day. That is after they could make some more safety equipment, in case one of the rounds did not like being worked on… again.

They have been sweeping and re-sweeping everyone and everything, for any tracking devices. Thankfully, so far they had not found a single one. Major Weston was not sure that was a good thing or not, on not finding any trackers. He was still on the fence that the metal machines might not, have any of these self-powered devices in the first place. It made a type of logical since, if you think about it for a while. If they were going to be down loaded with a memory of what happened to them? Then why would you need a locator beacon to find what was left of the outer shells? Major Weston gave himself a mental shake, but was careful that it did not become a physical one. One of his old friends, back on Earth had a saying about logic. It went something like. "Logic was something that would lead you down the wrong path. But you have great confidence, while you were doing the wrong thing at the right time." Weston had a lot to think about, but at least he had an enemy he could kill. And this one in his book, made him feel that it was an enemy that was good to go out of your way to kill. Evil is Evil, no matter what they are covered in. Major Weston had been accused of being a bit color blind in that department before, and he was okay with people thinking that. He was a mercenary, who fought for money. All though he liked to be picky about who he toke a paycheck from, when he could. Major Weston reviewed another report to get his mind onto another subject. The rest of the camp had things to do, and it finally ran like an oiled machine. That is until someone threw another wrench into works again.

Back in the Colonial school tent that had been emptied of all of the young ones. It there place a meeting was being held with the most trusted members of what was left of the leadership of the 12 Colonies of Man. If they were found out by Baltar or worse of of the Cylons, they might not live to regret it. All of them had been setting around the table that was off against one side of the tent, as James "Jammer" Lyman finished telling everyone, again about what he had seen. He had to retell his story now three times completely, and that did not count all of the stops and starts he had to go through. It was getting old, or he was just that tired. The retelling had not been perfect each time, but the core facts had been very close each time he went over the events verbally. So close in fact, that it had caused a little bit of concern that some in the small group thought he might be lying to them. Now everyone was around the little table was in a clinical low state of shock. They each had known about strange computer device that Duck had been given earlier in the week. It had seemed very high tech, but they had seen and worked with it for a few days so the newness had worn off of it. None of the group was that into high tech gadgets, even for Colonials. All of them had seen or read about "secret" high tech items before. That the Military or Government was supposed to have been working on, before the cylons sneak attack. They had no idea what was under the bonnet of the device, and would not have understood it even if they popped the top of the strange computer. Now it was out of the camp and its newness was wearing off.

When Jammer had come into Roslin's teaching tent, she had not known that he had made it outside the cylon controlled area. She had to take a seat when Jammer leaned in close to her ear as she was working with the young ones. He had told her he had a message from his old boss, Galen Tyrol. She had recovered very quickly, and she had asked him wait in her sleeping area. He was to stay there until she could get Colonel Tigh to come over and the kids out of the tent. She had to do all of this without drawing unwanted attention to herself. Later she had made a mental note to write the date down in her daily diary. That was because it was the only the second time, she had seen Saul not drunk or with a hangover. That was the first time Jammer had told the story about the strangers outside of the muddy field. It was also the only time he told anyone how he had been able to get back into the camp, without being seen by the metal Frakers. Both Roslin and Saul wanted that bit of news to be close hold to as few people as possible, so that it might be used again when needed.

He had started off is story about how he had been trying to put as much distance between him and the cylon controlled area. Jammer went into a lot of detail about the scout that had made contact with him. The tone of shock was still in his voice as he spoke to the small group of Colonial leaders. As he told the group about how the strange scout had had been stretched out seemingly dozing on a rock covered by a massive local tree. It was as he was doing his level best at sneaking around the woods, trying not to be seen or heard by the cylons. Jammer had not even noticed the other man till he was about five feet or so, away from the oddly dressed man. Who only at first gave a white teeth smile, and did a full arm wave to the shocked sill Colonial. At first Jammer had thought he was a dead man, now that the cylons had found him. Jammer told them that he had just thrown down his walking stick, and put his hands up in the air to show that he was not armed. That was known to work….. sometimes with the cylons, and sometimes you just died with your hands in the air over your head. The man did not saying anything and had winked at him. Then before Jammer could get his mind to work again, the stranger had passed him a note and self-heating ration pack of some kind. Jammers took the warm package and eat the meal first thing. He was so hungry, that he had not noticed the other man had put a cover over him to help with the morning cold. When he had finished eating a pound of warm but strange tasting food, and a little warmer he read the note. It had told him that the scout did not speak Caprican or understand it so don't even try to communicate with him, it would be a waste of time. It told Jammer that if he wanted to come to their camp, that they would protect him. That is as long as he obeyed there rules, and the back side of the note gave a short list of the rules/laws. They seemed fair so he check the box that said he was okay with it. He gave the note back to the other man who was still stretched out on the large rock like some kind of cat.

After having to stop and repeat a few details, like the rules on the note, he told them about the short trek through the darkening forest. That is until they reached a strange hidden device that he knew had never seen Colonial controlled space. Jammer went into as much detail as he could, about the amazing hover cycle. That had flown him and the scout that had found him to a hidden camp farther into the forest. He was told that he did not have to go over that part of the story in any great detail again, unless someone asked. The larger group had asked but the ex-president had offered that he could tell it again later, after the main meeting. Now that they could get to the meat of the meeting, and find out what was going on outside the confines of this camp. They were starved for news and they all were sitting on the edge of the homemade wooden chairs.

Jammer went into detail about the meeting with Tyrol, this Major Weston, and the translation computer that showed a new trick. He was able to meet some of the others Colonials, which had been picked up, and brought in this military field camp already. The newly gathered Colonials did know that at least four other people in one group were still out there in the wilds alone. That group had not been too trusting of these strangers. They had sent one person from there group to make sure everything was on the up and up, and not some kind of cylon trick before coming to this camp. Jammer was expecting that they too would be taking up the stranger's, on their offer of moving into the field camp in a day or two. That is if they had not done so already. This cased another pause as the group talked about their people flocking to these strangers in the forest for both help and protection.

Jammer told the whole meeting about the walking heavy powered armor, which were almost like Centurions. It was just that they had a man or women inside controlling them and not some computer. He also told them about the weapons he had seen and the ones that he was told about, before leaving to come back. This part he had to go over several times until he needed some water to help him talk, and still most did not believe what he had been saying. He told them about these strangers view of history. Even now, even he had problems believing everything he heard. But never the less, he passed it all along anyway. He told them that Tyrol had volunteered to stay behind, and was helping them with weapons testing. That little bombshell caused another delay. Jammer had a sly smile on his face, and then passed along a hand written note from the old Deck Boss. The note had been addressed to his ex-wife in handwriting that was not neat, but also not that messy. She had been brought in to read the note, out loud, to the rest of the group. She had not been happy having anything to do with Tyrol again in public. But the Colonel said it was military related, and she had finally relented. She was still Colonial military enough for that to work on her. She had told them, that it was his normal hand writing. It even was a pit less shaky, than it had been the last time he had written a note to try to patch things up with her. She did ask why the paper was so strange looking. She had not been brought in on the skinny about the strangers outside of the camp. She had noticed that corners were not cut, like proper paper should be. When she started to press for more information, Colonel Tigh had popped off at her. He told her it was none of her Fraking business. She had stopped talking then like a teenager, stuck her tongue out at the old man. Then she spun around and walked out of the tent. Soon she was back taking care of, and raising her child in a prison camp. When she was gone and Jammer had been given a signal that it was safe to talk again. He picked right back up with his back briefing. At the end, Jammer told them that he had volunteered to sneak back into camp in Tryols place. It was hopped, so that maybe the next step could be taken between the Colonials and these strangers that had been hiding in the forest.

The part of the story, which was not shard to the whole group, had been about Jammer's trip back into the camp. He had been taken most of the way back in an odd little hover car, and not the smaller and very uncomfortable motorcycle like device. That larger transportation had a manned and armed twin barreled tail gun of a kind that Jammer could not identify. It was open topped "car", but his escorts had covered him in numerous blankets, to help block the cold, damp and fast moving air from doing too much damage to his body. He went into as much detail about the other two people that had been in the transport with him as he could. The pair had been in some kind of armor that looked like a full body assault suits. It seemed to him that they were light, like law enforcement body armor. But it also seemed to make the warier unaware of the cold and damp air, as they sped through the night air, at a nightmare level of speed. All of this had been done without driving lights of any kind that Jammer had noticed. When pressed about what mission, a craft like he had been riding in might be. He had to tell them that he had no idea, maybe a scout car of some kind. Colonel Tight asked a few more pointed questions, but about the only thing Jammer could add was that they were moving fast. He could not even guess how fast they were going. Between the open top and the dark, he just had no way to judge. It's after all hard to judge speed in a convertible at the best of times, driving down a road with all of your windows down. It can even throw off you perception of the speed that your thinking you are traveling at, Jammer knew this because of more than a few speeding tickets he had gotten over the years.

Jammer told the two senior leaders about what his two scouts had told him of its capability. They had said, that they had able to get within six miles of the New Caprica safely, before they had put the flat bottomed craft on the ground. It was an amazing exhibition of both skill and technology, in that little transport he had been on. Colonel Tigh was patting his pockets without thinking, looking for a little shot of courage. When Roslin shot him a look, he stopped moving and Jammer continued. He told them that after they parked and finished hiding the machine. The three of them had to walk together all most of the way to the camp without a care in the world. That is until they were within a mile or so of the cylon controlled camp. This is the point that they left one of the armored person behind, in an over watch like position. The three of them were in the most heavily of the paroling areas, so the two men crawled about 5000 feet on their belles under a special blanket that the quite stranger had brought along for him to use. This had been packed into his escort's small rucksack. With the strange and not soft "blanket" cover each of them. That was the one point they dropped to their knees and craw the rest of the way. At one point while they had been crawling, they had to stop for some time. It was because a pair of Centurions walked close to where the pair had lain in the mud. Jammer and his escort were able to make it all the way to Roslin's tent during the early morning daylight. Without being stopped by either human, human form cylon or Centurion. The second person had been hiding outside the tent while Jammer had entered the main tent. He had come in when Jammer had stuck his head out the tent flap making sure all the kids were gone. Roslin had not been able to talk to the stranger, due to the language barrier. But she could tell that his was not one of the people who had landed on this planet in any of the ships of the Rag Tag Fleet.

Roslin had picked up on the story now and Jammer was thankful or the break. She told Colonel Tigh that the man smiled at the two Colonials, said something that neither one understood. Then he turned, check the mud path outside again. It must have been okay, and in a few seconds he was out of sight after again exiting the tent. He had left some dried fish and one of the amazing camouflaged blankets, in the little school tent when he had left. Roslin had some time to think about the stranger just leaving in that way. She had concluded before Colonel Tigh had come to her tent, that the quick stop. It had been simply had been to act as proof, that Jammer was telling the truth about making contact with them. Roslin knew that she was still having problems believing what was happing, and she had seen the stranger first hand. Now she had to convince everyone else what was going on, and make plans for the future.

Colonel Tigh was rocking back in his rickety chair; he was wishing that the meeting could have been just kept to the three of them. Tigh bit his lower lip trying to bit anyone's head off, after Jammer had been grilled for a few hours. He had been quit for the last half hour of the grilling, which meant that when he spoke all eyes turned toward him like weapons turrets. Tigh did not even let it faze him as all eyes turned to look at him. "So, as I see it we now have what might be proof. That we have a set of humans that are shipwrecked on this planet, and that say they have no idea about the 12 Colonies of Kobal. And on top of that, they do not speak anything like we do." He held up two fingers than raised a third dirty and wrinkled finger. "They have some very high tech weapons, but they have not let anyone of our people take one out and use them. To see if they are all what they are advertised to be." He point a single finger on his off hand, back at Jammer. "If what he saw, was not a game with some kind rigged up toy, to be flashy and impress a few desperate strangers? So what do we do about it? How do we or they, use this capability to get the cylons off our Fraking neck?" Saul stopped talking and let both of his hands drop to the rough cut wooden table top.

One of the other people at the small table was acting as the leader of all the different temples and sects, which were still worshiped by the remains of this branch of humanity. She had been listening to what Roslin, Jammer, and Saul had said so far and she had her own issues. "They claim not to know about the Colonies of Man, so who do these people pray to then. If not the Lords of Kobal?" The female speaker had been with Roslin since she had been the priestess, to swear her into office those long months ago. Roslin knew she was under pressure by others, to step aside so someone else could fill her role as the spokesperson for all of the religious sects left.

Jammer had never been that religious of a person before the cylon surprise attack, but after all that had happen the last year. Now he found himself spending more time, thinking about everything to do with the Gods than at any other time in his life. He was very uncomfortable address this powerful religious leader. "Ma'am, I did not have a lot of time to look into that at the little field camp. I was just trying to see a little bit of anything I could, before I came back to report what was going on. I can say that I do not remembering seeing any shrines or markers, which we used to pay homage to the Gods. To be honest I don't know if I would have known what to look for with most of the minor Lords of Kobal." He gave deep shoulder shrug and tilted his head to one side. He was being honest, but he felt like he was letting her down with his lack of religious knowledge.

The leader of the different Religions was not happy at more proof, that the people in their charge were losing touch with the Gods and there time honored ways. She had a very well-schooled trained face, and it kept any disappoint from showing on her dark skinned face. She made a mental note to herself, that she would bring it up to the rest of the sects. She thought that they need to start taking measure to stop this downhill slide in religious knowledge. After making note she address the issue she knew she was going to have to deal with among her sects. "I don't know if we should work with them, that is if they are none believers." She raised one dark haired eyebrow and hit another point of concern that she knew would be raised by her people. "They said that they were from a planet called Earth, but they did not claim to be the Thirteenth Tribe." Even the tone she used carrying her concern to the air. She turned to make steady eye contact with man called Jammer. "You said earlier. That it seemed that they wanted to make sure, that we did not confuse them. With the Thirteenth Tribe we have read about in our scriptures. Why would they do that?" The tone was turning soft, but at the same time very firm. It showed that she wanted to know this answer, or it might be a deal breaker for the people she represented.

Roslin saw what was coming next, and tried to stop it before it got too far and she could not bring it back. "Let's first see if they will help us fight the cylons. Then we can speed time working on finding out who they pray to later, after the bleeding has stopped." Some people flinched at the helium cold tone she had just delivered. She let her voice get a little lighter tone after dropping the hammer. "They said that they called there home planet Earth, but they say that there are many planets that could have claim that same name. They are only claiming to from a planet called Earth by them." Rosiin shifted her own voice back into full political mode, something she did not feel that she should have needed to do in this group. "I think they are trying to make sure we are not confused, or made a decision that we might wished we had not later. I think we need to mark it down as they are being honest and want to avoid unnecessary confusion, if they can help it." She put both of her hands flat on the table top. "IF we can kick the cylons off of our throat, as Saul commitment stated. Then we can figure out how long they have been away from the Colonies, later. I would bet that they have as many question about us, as we have about them." She was even now even using her political face, to make it look like she was working with them and the voice of reason in the storm. Sometimes she hated being the one everyone looked to be one of the leaders of the people.

Colonel Tigh did not have a political ear of any kind, so he did not pick up on the by play between the two women sitting near him. "I'm still trying to get over the hover craft thing, and not only that but man-portable Direct Energy Weapons. And they have different types of them, on top of all of that. I might give up my favorite still to them." He had a lopsided grin on his old face. "If we can get our hands on a few of those weapons and use them against these Frakers." He smiled went evil, and he looked down into his glass of water mixed with something a bit more flammable. "Okay maybe, I will just let them borrow it for a while." He made a face and took, what most people would call a long ship. To him it was only a little snort of the stomach turning drink.

Roslin had an internal smile that she could not afford to let cross her face at this moment in time. Colonel Tigh might have been a beast at the best of times. But that little line drop, about these strangers having weapons that we had only dreamed about. Well that had been great and the timing had been Fraking perfect. It shifted the topic away from religion, and back to the bigger and in her mind the more important issue at hand. He might not have a political ear, but sometimes he could deliver the right zinger at the right time. "Okay I am calling a vote. Do we ask for formal support for this lost people or not?" She started slowly looking around the table, in the low lit tent.

She looked around the table. This was a blatant political move to get everyone on record with some kind of decision. It was a two edge sword, but it was a move that she felt that she would come out on top of. At least in the end, but there could be some hurt feelings along the way. She would have been okay asking for support anyway, without their tasid support. It just would be easier if they were on board with the idea, and could not back out of it later. At least not without there being some kind of repercussion, for their change of heart. She kept her face as unmoving as stone, not wanted to make it look like she was threating anyone. "I vote to ask for their support." She raised her hand, and the other hands started going up from the all of the others that were sitting around the wooden table. One at a time, until all of the hands was raised at head height, but one person. Roslin was bit let down, by that one hand not going up in support. She thought she know why, but she was still disappointed. She would not hold it against her, but she would have to remember it later.

"I will not vote to support this, till I know more about the faith of these strangers. But I will not obstruct your path. I also think that I should leave the council, until we have more information about my concern." She had been looking at the table top and not at one person. Now after a pause she looked up and at one person she knew this would affect the most. "Roslin if you need to talk. I will offer guidance, but I will not vote on the council till we know more about these strangers." Now she turned and made eye contact with another person sitting almost directly across from her. "Colonel Tigh good luck setting up your resistance combat force. I will pray to the Gods for your cause. I will also do what I can to help recruit for you among our flock." The dark skinned woman made her way out of the tent, and did not look back at the group around the wooden table. She did not need to know that every eye in the tent was watching her leave. She could feel them on her back.

The other people left sitting around the table, were now a little more nervous. Roslin knew she had to do something to get them focused again, on the problems at hand. "Okay now, I think we need to open up some kind of conduit between our two groups of survivors. We don't know how large this group is, but we need things. I think, we need to see what they can supply us with first off." Roslin could see all of the eyes quickly snap from looking at the tent flap to her. "Without a fully qualified doctor on the ground, I am comfortable with asking for basic items. I will put forward that we need medicines, vitamins, and more food." She had already passed the few pounds of dried fish that Jammer had brought, over to the pubic kitchens. She had sent four of the pre-teen kids out with a pack each to drop off, before the rest of the council had shown up. She wanted it so that everyone would be able to have some fresh protein in there next meal. She had written a note and explained. That she had found it in a box of stuff that had been in storage. I had been missing until; she went through the box looking for more supplies for her school. It had seemed that one of the cooks had been walking nearby when he had been given the food. He had stopped by the tent, and she had told him exactly what she had written in the note. The look the head cook had given her had been skeptical. But the gift was taken, and no more questions were asked about it. More importantly, word would not be passes about where it had come from. All they needed to know was that it just was there to be eaten.

Colonel Tigh leaned forward, and put more of his weight on the rough cut table top, and locked eyes with the woman across from him. "Roslin we are okay with what food we have right now, and in those other particular areas. Could we use more? Frak yes! No doubt about it. But what we need, and are very short of, pulse we cannot make more of. Are weapons, war load ammunition, and body armor." Saul put both hands up in the air. He wanted to stop the coming interruption from a few people around the table, so that he could finish. "What I think we should do is be more board with our requests. Because we don't know what they will give us, so we should make a list. We need to make sure to note on it, that the list is in order of what "we" think we need the most." Tigh even used the twin hand air quotes on the "we" part of the sentence. "This will let them chose, what they want or can to pass along to use. And it will not be limited to one of two items." He held up one of the limited amount of writing paper pads. This one had the proper cut corners, which gave it a finished look that was missing from the new comer's paper in the eyes of the Colonials. When he put the pad of paper down, he looked up to the top of the fabric tent. He was trying to pull up some information that he dare not write down. "I have only a dozen or so rifles, and a few more than that in various types of pistols. The ammunition is almost all light weight, and anti-human personnel rounds. With very few of the High Explosive tipped rounds we need to take out Centurions. I don't think these strangers will have any compatible ammunition for our various weapon, but again it is a start point. Maybe we can get new stuff from them, which can do the job as well or maybe even better than Colonial Military stuff. I want those things at the top of the list." The pad of paper slapped from the table top. Saul had the look that he was not going to back down from the last words, which had come out of his mouth. His jaw was set, and his mental heals dug in about the mater. He was ready to fight with whatever it took to get his way on the subject.

The little group spent the next few hours arguing about who had priorities on the requesting of the supplies. They even had a problem agreeing on what supplies show make it on the list at all, and were it should go on that said list. It was a lot like herding cats, complete with sets of needle shape teeth and slashing claws. After the list was complete, it turned out that the weapons, ammunition, and body armor were Numbers 1, 2 and 3 on the list they had all agree to after all. They had to have the list done, and completed before the dark of night was gone. There was a cylon enforced curfew but that only applied to begin off of the muddy paths outside. And not what was going on in someone's living quarters. Once the list was done and rewritten so that it was legible. Colonel Tigh gave it to Jammer, who made his way to the edge of the camp. Now this was in clear violation of the cylon curfew. He had the cover that he had used to get into the camp, the same one that the strangers had left with the little bit of food. He knew it was not a magic carpet, and he still had to be careful sneaking around. That is if he wanted to live to see another dawn on the cold planet. He had no idea that the strange camouflaged blanket, which he was depending on with his life. It had been made by non-human hands, and not even in a human controlled dimension.

Jammer made it to the edge of camp and lay under the long cover. He sat there and waited for curfew patrols to complete their rounds. With the sun was down behind the horizon, even after so many hours. The glow of the surrounding interstellar nebula, gave the land an odd glow that he still was not use to. The ex-deck crewmen made his way out of the camp on his belly. He was as low to the ground as he could get in the cold mud, and it was already zapping his body heat. He was taking his time, and freezing in place every time his brain told him that a noise had happened nearby, and carried to his ears. Most of the time, it was just his brain playing tricks on him in the dark and highly stressed environment. But once a patrol of four bucket heads, had walked right by his prostrated body. The nearest Centurion had not been more than ten feet away from him lying in the mud under the strange blanket. He waited for the sound of moving metal feet in the mud to fade away, before he continued crawling away from the cylon controlled camp.

At one stop he pulled the blanket off of his eye to see what was around him. He could see the wood covered ridge, back lighted by the softly glowing night shy. This was one of the few clear nights they had in a month. Doing this was the only way that the young man could maintain his since of direction belly to mud. He was trying to keep in head down as low as he could. So much so that he was getting mud packed into his right ear, and it was stopping the flow of sound into that organ. It was also starting to distract him with the pain the mud packed ear was giving him. He was head down again when he was hit with a very big surprise. That was when he dropped into the creek bed from the raised dirt embankment, which he did not notice was there. That is until he was being pulled by gravity downward.

"Well Frak! That just fraking sucked." Jammer was setting in the middle of the slow moving creek, hip deep in the cold mud and slowly moving water. He slapped his hand down into the water, fling a good bit of mud off of his hands with the impact. He was not hurt or anything like that, it was just more in frustration than anything related to pain. The camouflaged blanket had not stayed with him. As his body had tried to fight gravity for a split second, before he fell into the mud and water filled creek bed. He pulled himself up out of the cold water and mud mixture. He first checked to make sure his limited food packet was still with him. Now that he was assured that he would not go hungry tonight, he could spend time on other tasks that he needed to do. He checked on what he thought of as the second most important thing next. He checked his most inner pocket with a soft set of pats, to make sure the weather protected sheet of paper was still in the proper place. When he found that it was still in place, and he had to assume that it was a lot drier than he was. He next started to look for the now missing protective blanket. He had no idea of where he was in the creek bed, but he had a 50/50 chance to pick the right way to start looking. That same 50/50 chance would get him to a point where he was supposed to be able to meet up with one of those people from lost Earth.

Jammer had first looked in the shallow creek near him for the missing blanket. When that turned up nothing, he started on the water level banks of the creek and worked his way higher up the muddy bank. It was taking some bit of time to do this, because he could not or did not want to use the little pen light he had with him to help with the task. He was trying to be systematic in his searching, but in his heart of hearts. He thought the wonderful concealing blanket was gone, until at least the sun rose to again and give him some better light to work with. "This is not going to be a Fraking show stopper." Jammer thought, as he was about to give up looking for the concealing device. He had a mission that was to help the human race, that the need to complete. He was doing something that literally, 90% of what remained of humanity would be benefited from. That was a huge burden to have on his shoulders, but he was going to do this mission, the best that he could and to finish this task. He had always thought of himself as living on borrowed time. Since the Cylons had blasted his home, and everyone he knew with a large saturation nuclear bombardment from orbit. If that did not kill everyone he knew, then the fallow on occupation by the Centurions had end them one at a time. That is if they were lucky, because that would have been at least a quick death. Jammer shook his head from left to right, to clear those morbid thoughts out of his head. It would not help him now. He needed to focus, and try to find the Fraking camouflage blanket. He was on his second sweep of the bank, and his self-imposed last one before he told himself that he needed to get on with his mission. He just could not waste any more time stumbling around in the dark, knee deep in water and freezing mud looking for the Fraking thing. After all he had made it before, without one of those magic blankets. So it was only a "nice to have" item in the book of life and not a must have item. If he had known that that the cover he had been using cost 15,000 credits per ten square feet, he might have looked longer. But he did not know that and would not find out about the cost of the Narumi made sheet until about sixteen months later.

Jammer was just about to give up and turned to his right. He start moving downstream in shallow creek but deep creek bed. That was the way he had decided that he was going to start looking for these strangers. But it was at that point when he froze in place like a deer caught in a set of oncoming truck lights. A rock had fallen into the water up stream of him, and it had made small splash when it had entered the water. This sounded as loud as thunder to his ears in the still night air. He was not a wilderness man by training or inclination. But he knew rocks did not fall just because they wanted to, but because something had made it move or fall. The Earthers had not given him any weapons, but he had a good blade that he had bought a lot time ago on a very different planet. It would not work against the Centurions, but maybe it would work against one of the skin jobs. No one knew for sure, but he would not go down without the best fight he could give them. The knife was still hidden, but it could swiftly get to his right hand.

Jammer slowly turned toward a soft sound, coming from the same direction that the rock had fallen from. A person was standing legs spread across the narrowed cold water creek. They were not moving, and looking at him with their arms folded in front of them. Jammer was about to lunge at the person, but for some reason he stopped moving. It took a few seconds for him to make out details in the dark of night. That was when he realized, that whoever was in front of him. Had a set of bug like eyes, and was smiling with a full set of white human teeth. It was also holding up something that was dripping wet out of its right hand, and more importantly the left hand was empty. It was one of the Earther's scouts, and it only took Jammer a few seconds more to come to that conclusion. Sometimes his tired brain took time for information to work through his shocked filled brain. Now that he knew that he had found the contact he was supposed to be looking for. He started slowly waking toward the other person. He knew now was not the time to rush in and mess something up.

The Scout tapped the bug looking eyes with a long thin finger. And smiled when Jammer walked up, and took the offered wet blanket from the outstretched arm. Jammer folded it up as carefully as he could, with it being a very mud covered item. That was not making the job as neat, as he would have liked it to be. He felt like he was not taking care of the equipment properly. If the story was true, and they were shipped wrecked on this planet? Then it was not like these blankets would grow on any of the local trees, which he knew about. Jammer put the now folded wet and mud covered item under his left arm, to hold it in place. It would ride there at least somewhat comfortably. He thought to himself, he would rig up something better later, or maybe he could borrow a small rucksack from one of the Earthers. If not that, then he thought some cord or thin rope would do the trick also. But the rucksack would help a lot. Like with carrying the things on the list that the Colonel, and the real President wanted him to bring back to the camp. It was too bad that the Colonial leadership did not have one to give to him, before he had to sneak out of the camp.

The scout waved to Jammer to fallow him. When he got close, the scout offered a pair of the goggles, just like the one's that the scout had on. Jammer took a few minutes to look at the device under the slight glow of the night sky. His eyes were already adjusted to the low light, but you could not see very fine detail. It was not as good as looking at the device under normal light, but he got the idea of what they were, and how to put them on correctly. The device was amazing, when he put them on over his eyes. The device was already "on", so the low light gathering capabilities turned the night into day bright. When he ran his hand over the front and sides of the goggles like devices, but he could not find or feel any IR transmitter under his fingers. He quickly figured out that all of this, was all being done with the light amplification method. He was not as tech savvy as the Chief, but he was still impressed with the level of technology something like the goggles represented.

Jammer was fallowing the female scout up the creek, without a care of tripping over an unseen obstacle hidden by the night. There was now no doubt of her sex, now that with the low light goggles. He could see her outline in a Stalker Suit against the creek bank. Jammer remembered that he had seen that suit before, back at the stranger's camp. When he had met back up with Tyrol a few days ago. It was hard to miss a six foot tall woman with a very sticking figure in a black suit, which so did not hide the human form underneath of it. Okay she was built like a brick outhouse, and Jammer was a male, with a pulse after all. The cloths she wore were not the type to hide her in a crowd, even among the Rift Earthers. Many a set of eyes had fallowed her predatory smooth strut, when she walked around the camp and they all were not just Colonial raised. It was later when he was asking about her, he found out that the suit was for scouting hostile territory. It was reinforced to him that it was not an advertised, meant for something else. It was a little hard for him to believe that, but he took it at face value. He had an even harder time, believing that it was armored to with stand the damage of multiple direct energy weapons hits. It was said, that it could take those hits, and still kept the person inside the suit very much alive and combat effective. He just nodded his head up and down, and tried not to stare at the impressive figure of a woman walking around the tent camp. He had not thought about her since he left the camp. What were the odds of him running into her out here? He did have that long to ponder the thought, as they picked up the walking speed.

Jammer was fallowing her along the creek, all the way until a point where the bank was lower to the water course, and it was made up of more rocks than dirt. They were now a good distance from the now prison camp of New Caprica. The pair went up the rocky sides of the bank to the flatter top area, with very little issue. The lower creek bank was so rocky, that they would not leave any hand or boot prints to be fond by any cylons that might come by the area later. It did not take long for Jammer to realize. That this was not the same route, he had taken when he had been helped to get back in the camp. A camp that held over 30,000 people would have more than one hole in the physical security systems to exploit. When the landing Colonials had set up the city in the first place. They had not been thinking about having to keep people in, under any type of guard force. So it would take some length of time, to plugs all of the leaks into the surrounding area. Baltar had been only looking for a safe place, so that they could land all of the ships close together, and not thinking about security. Now the cylons were trying to keep the locals where they could keep an eye on them, for now at least. If rumors were to be believed. The one called Caprica Eight wanted the Colonials to live without patrols, and other means of security oversight. Jammer shook his head to clear that thought out of his mind and focused more on what he was supposed to be doing.

Jammer dropped his head down and was fallowing the large women going deeper into the wilds of the planet at a very fast walk. He had no idea how long they had been traveling. He had been going since he had started sneaking out of the camp. He was on his last bit of energy, and it was fading fast. The stress of the last few days was coming on like an out of control Viper. The cold, wet, and lack of sleep were sapping his strength faster and faster after each step he took onto the leave coved ground. His motivation had dropped even lower. When he noticed that they were going up a ridge, which seemed like a straight line up the steep sided terrain feature. It was a relief to his tired legs, when they went down the other side of the ridge. He did not realize were they were going, till the tall woman moved some of the fern like vines to her front. She pointed for him to go into the cave opening that was now exposed from the hanging vines and tree roots.

It was a limestone cave made by the water soaking in from the top, and then finding cracks in the rocks, till it could find its way out the lower side of the ridge. Jammers borrowed night vision goggles were useless, once they were both fully inside the cave. It was because there was not any light energy for it to gather, and amplify so that he could see in the dark. He made his way as far as he could before it was just a black mass in front of him. He stopped moving when he heard the soft laughing coming from behind him again. He turned around, and with the little light coming through the vines. He could see that the female scout was only a few steps behind him. She put her hand over her goggles, and repeated the jester twice more. When he did the same motion a light filled the cave, Jammer opened a small space between his fingers in a snow goggle like affect. He now could see something in the scout's left hand. It was glowing an off shade of green, but he could not tell what it was. He pulled the goggles up over his eyes, but it still was dark in the rest of the cave. When he turned back to the scout he saw a little glow coming from the scout's hand again. It was a very faint pin light of some kind that was attached to her gloved hand. He put his back against the wet cave wall, and the black form of the scout walked passed him. Now that she was in the lead Jammer pulled the goggles back over his eyes, so that he could see what was going on. He would have been able to see 50 or 60 feet deeper into the cave, because of the light bring device. If it weren't for the turns the eroding water had to make to avoid harder rock in areas under the ridge. It was after, an almost 90 degree turn. That Jammer could see a glow come from ahead of them threw his borrowed night vision device. The glow drew his eye, and in a few more steps and another soft turn to the right. The light was now very bright, and the female scout turned off her hand held light for the rest of the way moving deeper into the water bottomed cave.

Jammer pushed the goggles off of his eyes, and moved them up to his forehead. This was so that if he needed them again, they would be close at hand and easier to find. The glow was bright enough that he did not need them that much for the walk down cave. They came up to a camp fire burning, on a ledge of higher rock with the water running slowly underneath it. Another woman was tending the small fire, made of smaller twigs and surrounded with larger wood logs. The outer logs looked to be three or four inches thick. Jammer knew that they did that back in New Caprica/Kobal Scouts when he was a kid. It was to dry the wood, before it was added to a fire. Until know he had no idea if worked in the real world or not. The two women greeted each other as friends with some words and a light hug, but Jammer had no idea what was being said. So he just stood there waiting for some directions that he could translate into action.


	13. Chapter 13 Chapter 7a Opening moves

**Chapter 7a Opening Moves**

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

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When the female scout leading the Colonial, made the last turn in the long cave, she slowed her walking pace a little. She could see another young woman in her mid-20s. She was stretched out enjoying the warmth and light provided by the small fire. This picture perfect scene was on a dry ledge covering part of the small stream that ran on the bottom of the cave. Normally Eva and her friend would not have made a fire while on a mission. But this cave was perfect in hiding any fire from enemy observation. Besides having fire, even a little one like this one, made life so much better. They were experienced scouts, and know how to keep a fire low, just like this one was. Even in a large cave system like this one, a "normal" camp fire would have been a major risk. The current idea, was that this cave would be the pairs little base camp. At least while scouting these strangers for Major Weston. Having this little camp site so close to the off worlders, would increase the pair's time on the mission. Robin and her working/scouting partner, had been out watching the strange camp. It was in case the messenger the Major had sent in might come out. Weston wanted to make sure they collected any possible contacts as fast and as early as possible. They were told to bring whoever it was, back to the support camp. And do it as soon as they safely could. Eva would have had the day watch after resting near the fire all night. But neither of the scouts expected someone to be sneaking out, so soon after they had gotten set up for watching. Now all they needed to do was found out, if this man was there golden ticket or not. The worst case was it was just another local sneaking out from under the metal machines and clones control. The two scouts would get a reward in either case when they got him to the Major, or someone on his staff. It was just the matter of size of the hand out, when they got there. The higher the value the target, the higher the reward would be. It was a complex system, but it was fare, to a point.

Eva pushed the cowboy hat to sit more on the back of her head. The hat was part of her body armor, would have covered her head from some weapons fire. With the move back, it exposed more of her face to the other woman. She had not moved a muscle, after greeted her longtime friend. Eva had not been a great fan of the NG Range Rider armor, back before they had come to this planet. She had thought that the styling was odd, and not her thing. She was the opinion, that if you were going to spend 15,000 on a set of body armor. You had better be in love with every detail of the blasted thing. She would agree whole heartedly about one thing about the Northern Gun made body armor. That was that it was a lot better than the half homemade body armor crap, she had to make the trip with. Why did she have body protection that she thought of as crap? That was because, that was all she could afford at the time as back up protection on Rifts Earth. She had been saving up for a set of Stalker body armor like Robin was sporting. But she had not been able to complete the deal, before they had boarded the Luck Find.

Each of the women had a set of full up Powered Armor, which they had left back at the main camp. It would not have been helpful to have that level of firepower, yet. Besides it was harder to sneak around in these woods, with all that mass hanging off your body. They had traded in their old armored suits, and some cash to a whole seller back in Decatur. To pick up two brand new Delilah's suits. That was what they had when they needed to bring the boom down on a target, just like there older and less power suits had done for a few years now. The sale had been completed just before they had bought a ticket on the not so Lucky Find. The suites had still been in the shipping containers from Decatur when Eva and Robin had checked into their ship board cabin. Secretly, both women were waiting for a chance, to finely see what these new suits could do in combat.

Eva let a smile come to her lips. "Well Robin you're back early. I was beginning to think, that I might be having one of those metal things coming for an early breakfast. Why didn't you tap the code out?" Eva said after putting the ion pistol back in its hiding place, and rising to stand with her longtime friend and working partner. Eva gave Robin a quick hug of welcome. They did that every time, one of them came back alive after a mission. There had been more than one bar fight started back home, when others would ask. Exactly how close of friends they were. If it had been asked in the wrong tone of voice, or after a few to many drinks? Well, hard fists would be put in someone's mouth without the use of condiments of any kind.

The tall woman smiled at the other women, which she had grown up with outside of Fort Eldorado. "I saw this guy sliding through the mud outside of that camp, while I was watching the field." She pointed to the man two steps behind her, and one step to the right. "I thought the chrome bots had him, but they don't seem noticed him in all that mud. Or it could have been because he had somehow gotten a hold of a Naruni made camouflage sheet. It would have been nice if Weston would have let us know that one of them had something like that." If they would have known about the Naruni sheet, it would have clued them into what to look for. "Did you update the E tablet, with the cliff notes on how to communicate with them?" Robin could see the man standing still, and waiting out of the corner of her eye. She was a little surprised that he did not seem that jumpy to her. She knew if the roles were reversed she would jumpy as all get out.

Eva nodded her head up and down, and then started digging in her backpack. She pulled out a small electronic computer, which was only about in half an inch thick. While she was powering it up and getting the device ready for operation, she filled the damp air by talking. "It's not a full-fledged translation device. But it can flip what we write out between English and whatever they call what, they write with. They said it's not perfect, but it should help pass the time. If we use small words, and don't try to make a legal document or something along those lines." She had delivered the last remark with a sly smile directed at Robin. Robin had a few brushes with the law, when someone fell a little too hard for her. They had to take legal action to be fix the back blast from those broke hearts.

Jammer saw the slight head movement of the dark clothed scout. For some reason he decided things must be okay. He looked at on the rock shelf while the two talked. He was tired of standing, and the lip of the rock ledge was only a little too low to be comfortable, but it served to hold his weight. He moved to sit on it. Jammer was looking towards the little fire close to where he was siting. The fire was new, and maybe only a few hours old because a good bed of ashes had not been formed yet. The other woman passed him the E-pad while he was watching them, and the little orange flame fire flicker in the dark tunnel. She made a show of touching a point on the screen. In a brief flash of light and movement, the text flipped from the strange text they used to perfect Caprican letters. It was not proper usage, it also had some bad spelling errors, and in one case the word used just did not fit. But it was close enough to see what she was asking him. The pair wanted to know, if he had a message to take back to her commander. He used the now Caprican labeled screen keys, and slowly tapped out a message. He told them, that he did have a message to take back to Major Weston. He passed the e-pad back to the other women, so they could read what he had slowly typed out on the glowing touch screen keys. The use of this much technology in the field was a little unsettling to Jammer, but he could deal with it. He after all, had maintained Vipers and Raptors before they had found this planet. Most Colonials did not like using technology after the cylon uprising and the ensuing back lash after the first war.

Eva took the pad, and said something he did not understand, but she was tapping on the screen with rapid finger movements. She stopped the finger movements and reviewed what was on the screen, before passing it back Jammer. Jammers eyes fallowed some movement off to one side of the fire, and he saw Robin was digging in a different backpack. This pack that had been off to one side of the little fire, and she pulled out a cooking pan. The screen message was simple "Are you hungry? Would you like to have a meal with us?" He quickly tapped a yes to both of the questions, and handed the device back to the shorter of the two women. Asking a survivor of the cylon attack, if they were hungry? Was dumb as it got in asking questions. They were always hungry. It came from being on short rations for a few years. It was a great diet plan, but not one anyone he knew would recommend to fallow. That is if they could chose a plans to fallow, the added grey hair you received from that diet plan was distressing.

Eva and Robin were both watching the man eat, the fork was almost a blur as it moved from field plate to mouth. They had been told that these Colonials had been on short rations for a while. And what food they did have, ranged from bland to very bland in the taste department. After seeing how this one eats or more to the point vacuumed up the food. That would have been the better adjective to describe how he had clean off his plate. Eva looked at Robin. "Well, I glad they had finished building and planting those two large High Top greenhouses back at the Settlement." Robin nodded her head in a short up and down, but did not say a word.

Robin and Eva went back in time thinking about the two Greenhouses. The pair of scouts had been waiting for metal that was in short supply. To make the support poles they needed to finish greenhouses. But something had driven them not to wait any longer, about six months back. They had gone out on one of the earliest scouting mission to look for the new comers. That had been when they had found a pole type of bush growing wild on a creek bank. It was like a cross between Bamboo and an Oleander plants back home. Eva went out alone later, and found the patch again on a borrowed four wheeler a few months later. She had cut down a large grouping of the stocks, and brought them back to the Settlement for some testing. The two of them were able to do different types of bends, on the silver dollar diameter wood stems. They had to do the testing away from the rest Settlement or any other prying eyes. And it turned out that the wooden stems just might be strong enough to do the job, which they had been waiting on metal poles to do. The wooden stems made poles would not last as long as metal poles, just a lot thicker than the metal made post. But the wooden ones would be a whole lot cheaper. Even if they had to replace the wooden poles a dozen times. They bent three lengths of bamboo like plant to be the main roof beam, and attachment them to larger hard wood six by six supports poles on the sides. This made an arch that was almost eight feet tall at the top of the bent wooden stems. A total of eight poles were put in the ground, making an outline of what they wanted to build. This was something that they could not hide that well, but they tried. It even worked for a few weeks.

They were ready for next step for the new greenhouse. This was putting the hard but clear plastic, which was made of only local items. Surprisingly the plastic had gone over the wooden archers without any issues. So the money they had saved not waiting to spend for the hard to get metal to make the supports. Went instead to buy light tubes, and warm water heating system for the now complete High Tunnel greenhouses. When they were not in the Settlement on paying missions, they had a sharecropper that would look after the green houses for them. They both were now thinking, and looking at the Colonial eating across from them. That four acres of wheat, and another four acres of mixed fruits that would be ready in a few months. Would make them some good money, for both the scouts and sharecropper working with them. It was also looking like that they were going to need more fresh food, a lot more.

The three warriors spent their time in the cave being warm, and pass the time using the little tablet to communicate back and forth. What they did not know was that weather front was moving in, and changed the temperature inversion layers in their local area. The fire was small but it still smoked and it started smoking more than it should. This went unnoticed by the trio sitting close to the warm fire. The rising grey smoke moved along the roof of the cave, slowly making its way downstream of the source of the smoke. When it made it to the vine covered opening, it was not stopped at all, and easily flowed around the living current of vines and roots. Now it was out of the cave and into the creek bed, below the covered opening. The smoke was not rising and dissipating like it should, but instead it was slowly filling the little valley with a thin blue-white smoke layer of wood smoke over the next several hours.

The cylon Centurions do not have a sense of smell, but had other systems that could detect things. One of them noticed the smoke in this location, and it was odd enough to activate a program subroutine. When it got to the list of orders in its control processor. The report of the odd smoke was passed along to the human form cylons. That was its acting supervisors it and a small group of other Centurions outside of containment area holding the humans. A Number 8 that went by the human name of Kathy received the information. She knew that some of the other human forms cylons called her Crazy Kathy behind her back. Or when they thought she could not hear read the reports, but she had so far let it slide off her back like water off a duck's back. She had other issue that were more important to her, than a few derogatory names said about her.

She had not been the same, since her very first down load into a new body or second body as some had called it. She had been working at a planetary defense center on Caprica, on the day of the surprise Cylon attack on the human race. She had planted a brief case nuclear bomb in the secondary manual fire control center of a key defensive point. That center would have allowed the crews of a dozen nearby weapons mounts to fire the heavy weapons turrets. Even without the main fire control computers being on line. It had been decided in that event. It could have caused problems for the attacking waves of Baseships and supporting smaller craft. What she had not known about when she had been given the mission, was the three busloads of kids. Which were taking a tour of the same facility on the day of the planned cylon attack. She had been delayed leaving the base main building after placing the WMD, because of the influx of young visitors. She had still been in the main lobby of the facility, when bombs had started to fall. She had seen all of those kids die along with her own body in front of her eyes. As her brief case weapon did the job it had been designed to do, with cylon efficiency. She had come out of the goo still screaming her lungs out, and with extreme muscle spasms that had filled her lungs will the thick goo of the down loading tank. She would not have been surprised, that some of the other cylon lines had plans for her to be boxed next time she had to be down loaded into a new body. As each day passed, she wished more and more, that they would box her instead of putting her in a new human like body. Even if that meant that they, had to shot her themselves to speed up the event. She would have liked to help them along, but because she could not bring herself to do the job herself. She was still alive and walking around. She unfortunately did not think that the other members of her line or the other cylon lines, would kill her out of hand. That was because their God had said that Cylons did not kill Cylons.

That was why she was out in the woods all the time night to night, and as often as she could get away with it. She was always asking for this dangerous task, even with the growing risk of harm to the cylons over the last few days. She was hoping that whatever was killing the Centurions, and at the same time stopping them from down loading. Would also stop that event from happening to her. That way the dreams that she had been cursed with every time she went to sleep, would at least stop. That was what she hopped for anyway, so in a since she was legally crazy. The six Centurions entered the little valley in front of her, and they started to move up the creek at its bottom at what most people would call a fast walk. It all looked very tactical and military popper to her untrained eyes. As they moved the smoke was getting thicker over their head, but it was only noticeable by the sensors mounted on the metal monsters. The human eye could not tell it was changing noticeably, not even to the genetically modified human form ones had been made with. They kept going up creek till the smoke stared to now noticeably thin out again. The machines picked up the change first, but they did not stop walking until the human form had called a halt to the movement. Now that they had both ends identified they started back down the creek again. This time they were moving a little slower and a lot quieter. Something was strange, and it was setting off the warning logic codes embedded in the slow walking Centurions. There was wood or organic smoke, but they had not found the fire on this wet planet on their first pass through the area. Now they had to find out why that was. Kathy gave nod with a snap up of her head, and the right hand on each of the combat machines flipped thru a complex operation. This was to bring their tri-barrel light machine guns into operations. They now were in place of the almost sword length cutting blades that were normally on display.

Jammer, Robin and Eva had been at the cave mouth when the enemy troops marched by going farther up the creek bed below them. Jammer was feeling very under dress without a sidearm as the cylons moved passed them almost at a running humans speed. He was just a deckhand, but he knew how to protect himself with firearms, even before the cylon sneak attack. After the attack he had spent even more time in weapons training center. It had been as a just in case, as well as a few real life firefights on the Battlestar. The three of them had ducked back a little deeper in the cave while the cylons were still going up the creek. They did not go so far in that they could not see, and count the machines as they went by. The sounds of there almost running feet could be heard quit well inside the cave for some time. The two woman were talking softly in that language, that the Colonial could not understand. But they seemed very excited, and Jammer did not know if that was a good thing… or not. They were giving him that Starbuck vibe of about to do something "Fun", and his skin started to itch all over his body. That also did not mean that whatever was about to happen, was going to be a good thing.

Jammer still had the little computer in his hands, and tapped a few of the buttons. When he was done he passed it to the nearest women. Eva looked at the display. It had only one word on the display, "RUN". When she looked back at the only man around, she waved her hand to make eye contact with him. Jammer pointed across the little valley to the other side of the creek, and away from the landed Colonial space ships. Eva shocks her head, in what Jammer knew as a negative motion just like he would have done. Now he was going from a little worried and now it was climbing, well into scared range as fast as his heart could beat. He was distracted, and Eva had to wave the thin computer in front of this eyes, to see that she had something for him to read.

Jammer picked up the offered mini-computer. The screen had in large blue letters "No" below it was another line of letters that said. "Capture an important prize!" Below this line of texts was a small image of a Number 8 human form cylon. When Jammer looked up the other woman had left her overlook position into the creek bed. She had headed back deeper into the cave as silent as a stalking large cat. Eva was keeping an eye out for the cylons while Robin was gone, and her face was as still as a stone as she watched and listened. When the other woman came back to the mouth of the cave, she had an armload of weapons and equipment. Robin passed a long rifle like weapon to Jammer, like it was no big deal. It was an amazingly simple weapon, with a red dot aim point device. That was a lot like the devices that he had used before. I was just mounted on top of the long barreled weapon instead of the side mounted device on Colonial weapons and it had a metal folding stock. Jammer could not help but have a huge smile on his face, as he held the weapon in both of his slightly sweating hands. He was now, not defenseless.

Robin gave Jammer a quick class on aiming the weapon and safeing the rifle like weapon, before they left the cave as a group. Jammer was worry, but understood that he could not "test" fire the weapon before he was going to use it to try to take down some cylons. As soon as they exited the cave they turned right and ran hunched over. The three of them did a run along the edge of rock outside the cave mouth moving upstream of the hidden cave. They stayed bent over at the waist as they moved exposed to the cold air early morning air. Moving like this should make it a little harder to be seen from the creek below the little covering ridge of rock. Robin saw what she was looking for about 900 feet up stream from the cave, right where she remember it. She dropped down behind a fallen log that ran parallel to the ridge and had a great view of the creek bed below her. The other two people dropped down to either side of the first woman. And they automatically started scanning the creek below for any threats that might be there. Robin set up a long single tube weapon, which looked like a longer barreled old single shot shotgun to Jammer. It looked kind of like what kids back home used to learn to hunt with, to Jammers eyes. Jammer had no idea why she would want two long rifled weapons, but he did not know how to ask the right questions. Jammer looked down the line at the two women. They both had the "look", and their faces were set in a way that let him believe that they knew what they were doing. These two were planning on ambushing a cylon patrol with only three people. It was an impressive show of fraking guts, or dumb beyond measure. He was not so sure about himself, were he fit in between those two points of reference. They were looking to take on seven cylons with only three people, and without any heavy crew served weapons. He had heard that something like this could be done before, but he ranked those tails up to "make believe" statues. Now he was going to have one of those tails, or he was going to die. Jammer gave himself a mental shrug. He should have been dead a long time ago anyway.

Jammer went back to watching to see when the cylons would start back down the slow moving mud bed creek. While Jammer was scanning the creek bed, he could see how the cylons had found them, now that they were outside and the light was getting better. He did not know, and frankly he did not know how to ask the two women if they saw what he was seeing. There still was a thin blue haze in the creek bed. He quickly realized that they must have been using one of the thin, thumbed sized trees that grow around some creek banks, in there small fire. He knew that those types of small trees had low quantities of a creosote type substance in them. But it was only on the new thin growths, not the two inch and larger limbs, just the parts that might be used as kindling to start a camp fire. As the tree grew larger each year. The substance would move out to the new growth areas, for some still unknown reason. Jammer was thinking, that it was just some bad luck that the cylons had found the smoky haze. It should have floated up and away very quickly from the low smoke fire, they had be using inside of the cave.

After some time had passed, around the corner or bend in the creek bank he saw some movement. He again watched the cylons, as they made their way back downstream a lot slower than they had moved upstream a little while before. He started to think about what they were doing, it was a foolish line of thought but he could not shut in mind off from thinking it. It was only three of them against six Centurions and a human form cylon. All of the cylons were armed and armored to the teeth, and they looked ready for a fight. Jammer was thinking that they would not have the element of surprise on this ambush. They were way out gunned and not only that, they were outnumbered 2 to 1. He hoped that the other two were better trained in weapons than he was. Or they were not going to live to see the sun set again. His morbid and motivational killing thoughts were interrupted, when three of the metal monsters made it around a low but sharp bend in the creek. He could see them all clear as day from the top of their football shaped heads to the claw like toes, as they came to rest on rocks, mud, or in the slow moving brown colored water.

Robin tapped Jammer on the shoulder softly twice to get Jammers attention. Then she pointed to the chrome dome on the far left of the three Centurions that were the leading elements of the cylons recon forces. She made it very clear that she wanted him to target that one, so he made a few adjustments to his posture to get a better line up on that walking death machine. Jammer put the little red dot on the designated machine and waited. When all seven cylons were in the kill zone, Robin dropped her hand right hand. Jammer pulled the L-20 pulse Rifle deeper into the pocket of his shoulder. He let some air out of his longs, and pulled the trigger all the way back until it stopped moving. Jammer did everything, just as he had been shown how to do it. He missed low to the right and down of the Cylon that was only 200 feet from his seated location. It should have been an easy shot to make, for any military trained personnel. But yet somehow he had blown it, and he was stunned that he had missed. He could see clearly the hole in the ground that the energy impact had made from his missed shot. The shock of the miss stunned Jammer, and delayed his second shot.

What Jammer did not understand, was that Colonial military weapons were very powerful and had a recoil to match the punch at the point of impact. It did not take long for military personnel to pick up "Habits" to counter the massive recoil, and still hit what they were aiming at. Most military personnel would pull down a little on the barrel, but a few would put a little pressure on the firing side also. Just the way Jammer had done when he had fired the non-Colonial weapon. All of this was done to keep the muzzle aimed at the target. What this did to weapons like the L20 rifle without any recoil? It would cause the speed of light weapon to miss even a target at close range. All of those hours and days spent on the range, now conspired against the shooter.

Kathy Eight was starting to think this was another failed trip. That was until two of the front three Centurions in front of her collapsed with visible large holes in them. Those holes had been blown into the front chest plates of the metal cylons. Kathy was looking at the last standing front row warrior, the gunmetal skin was drawing her eyes. She was shocked still, even with cylon reflexes she was fitted with. As she was standing and staring at the only cylon in the front rank left standing. She was able to see a strange burst of white light striking one of the second line Centurions out of the corner of her modified eyes. It was almost pure instinct that the she activated the communication device hanging on the top of her right ear. Later she would only be able to recall the event by a special bit of cylon training. "Patrol 4 under attack! Area 4B 7X in the creek bed, two Centurions down." She saw out of the corner of her eye two more of her metal companions had fallen to the ground. It was happening almost for the human form cylon to fallow what was going on. "Make that four down. Please send more ground support. I think we are taking fire from the lip of the creek bed. I can see movement, but can't tell who the frak they are!" She stopped taking before she could finished with her last thought, when she felt a stinging sensation right in the center of her breast bone. She let go of the little transmitter hanging off of her ear, and reached down with that hand. She rubbed the sore point on her chest a bit roughly, and felt something that should not have been there. She looked down snake quick when her hand hit something, which should not be sticking out of her shirt. Just as she looked down, a second missile or dart shaped object impacted her chest. The object was stuck there less than two inches from the first dart in her center chest. The last coherent thought that she had, "was why someone was hitting her with a kid's toy?" The world started to haze over, and sort of lost definition. She was falling to the ground, only a hand full of heart beats before the last escorting Centurion fell to the ground in the shallow water of the slow moving creek. She still had a very confused expression plastered on her face as she hit the cold wet mud.

Jammer was looking over the quite creek bed. He was amazed what they had been able to do in such a short amount of time, and with so few people. The two scouts had taken down almost all of the Cylons, without the limited help he had provided. He had only been able to take out one of the front rank Centurion. He had fired into a second Centurion that was still moving in the muddy water of the creek. It had that looked like it was trying to get up off the ground, but again had missed his first shot, even after he had changed his aim point. He was amazed at the lack of sound and recoil when he was firing the strange weapon. That distraction made what happened next, almost stop his heart beating. His heart had skipped a beat when one of the last Centurions that was still functioning. It had sent a long burst of fire from its arm mounted machine guns into the ridge top near his location. It had gone into Eva positions only about ten feet away from him. He had thought she was died under that incoming cylon weapons fire. That last only about five heat beat, then she was yelling at some volume. To Jammers untrained ear, it did not sound like she was in distress of any kind or for that matter in heavy pain. Robin had said something Jammer could not understand, but she was laughing about it. So the other women must have been okay or at least okay enough. While Robin was going down the rocky slope, Jammer walked over to check on Eva. He did it just so that he could find out what had happened to what he had thought was a killing strike on her firing position.

When Jammer was able to see the other position. He saw that Eva was setting on a rock and looking at the fabric camouflaged cover that Jammer knew she had been wear a few minutes before. It now had five or six holes in the fabric in the shoulder area. Jammer could see off white smudge marks on the now exposed body armor. They looked to be in near the same area as the holes in the outer cover she was holding. He did not see any blood, and she seemed to be more upset about the damage to the overcoat. Than that she could have died from the accurate incoming enemy fire, from what Jammer had always thought of as devastating firepower. He was looking for the little computer they had been using, but when Robin started making excited noises below were they were standing. Evan and Jammer both looked down into the creek bed to see what was going on. They had no idea if she had seen more cylons, or had found a pretty rock of some kind. Then they saw Robin was kneeling down next the human form cylon with her hand near the neck. It was like she was checking for a pulse of the human form cylon. Jammer was trying to figure out, if the pumping of her fist in an up and down motion in the air was good thing, or not. Out of the corner of his right eye he could see Eva smiling so large he could see a lot of large white teeth. So maybe it was a good thing after all. He still had that "what are you Fraking thinking about Starbuck" feeling going on in the pit of his stomach. But he could not put his finger on why it was there. It was distressing, until something else could come up to distracting him from that line of thinking.

Eva seemed very happy and after she jumped up, and gave Jammer a quick kiss on the cheek before quickly picking her way down the ridge to the creek below. It took Jammer longer to make it down the slope, because he was trying not to leave any track in the mud and rocks. It was something he knew he need to do, but did not have the ingrained training to do it second nature. So he was moving from rock to rock, till he was on the bottom of the creek bed. Eva had left less signs then Jammer had, even though he had taken longer to make his way down to the bottom of the embankment. When he finally made to the mass of tangled mess of metal made by six blasted Centurions, the two women were talking very intently but quietly. Eva turned and walked very quickly back downstream in creek with making eye contact with the Colonial. Jammer was about to fallow her, were he assumed she was going back to the hidden cave. That is until he was stop by Robin tapping his chest with the computer pad, she had something for him to read. He had not even noticed that she had been taping on the screen.

You could have knocked him over with a feather when he found out what she had typed out. They wanted him to help move the sleeping cylon back to a different camp. Jammer was more of the option that when life gives you lemons, you squeeze it in you enemy's eyes, kick them between the legs, and then run like Frak. Robin could see the look and shot him a don't Frak with me look and pointed to the line on the screen. It said that Eva would pack up the camp in the cave, and catch up to them later. The message stated that the cave camp site might be now known to the cylons, so they needed to move as quickly as they could. "In case this group had friends on the way to pay the three of them another surprise visit." This was not going to be fun thought Jammer, he just wanted to shot the cylon in the head and be done with it. It did not take an Admiral to notice that these maybe allies wanted this human looking monster alive. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head up and down, but he was not smiling about it.

Between him and Robin, they were able to prop the 120 pounds of dead weight off the wet and sticky ground. This took a bit more energy than Jammer would have thought that it should, for such a small package. The Number 8 weighted a good bit more than he thought she should have, with such a small body frame. Jammer had to fight the urge to drop the cylon back in the mud, when his "creeped out meter" pigged. But he fought it off, and he was hopeful he did it without it showing too much on his face. With help from Robin, he was able to put the cylon over his should in a fireman's carry. It was not done in a so smooth of a motion, but it was done. Jammer had a cylon leg in one hand and a laser rifle in the other, and a few shoulder movements later. It was as about as good as it was going to get. It was a very strange mental picture he had in his head as he went down the creek bed. He could not help but laugh at himself, as they moved under the early morning sun.

They had passed the little cave, and Eva had not caught up to them yet. Without so much as a look towards the hidden cave, the two kept on walking down the creek. He was working up a fair amount of sweat, but he had been able to maintain most of his physical fitness. Even after landing on this cold wet world, he was almost a gym daggit. Robin had offered to take the load of the cylon for a while, but Jammers ego was not going to let that happen just yet. Robin had "only" been carrying the two weapons, one rifle and one hip mounted pistol so she was very lightly loaded. He had a hard time with the idea of passing over the dead weight cylon, to the woman that was only a little shorter than he was. He came from one of the few planets that did not mind that women were in combat. It was just that he knew he was stronger than the woman that was almost as tall as he was. He would wait till he was almost empty in the strength department, and then maybe he would hand off he cylon.

That was what Jammer was telling himself anyway, but deep down he knew that he would only pass over the heavy mass. Only after he was so tired that he fell on the unconscious Cylon across this shoulders. Then he would pass the load to the not so much smaller woman. He was thinking that if he did fall just wrong. That maybe it would break the things neck, and they could leave it in the mud with the rest of the rubbish. He had a sly smile on his face thinking about how he could fake a fall, and land just wrong. It would all be over for his load on his shoulders. And they could move a lot faster adding distance between them, and any cylons that might be coming up on them. It was a great mind distractor, and made the time and feet fly by for Jammer.

Robin had come to a sudden stopped in front of Jammer, and he was not thinking about her being near him. He almost ran into her back at his full walking speed, before his feet stopped moving with maybe an inch between them. She has looking at a path that had been worked into the mud that ran across the creek bed from them. Even Jammer could tell at a quick glance, that the tracks in the mud were made by Centurions, and lots of them by the look of the mud. Robin looked first left and then right, when she was satisfied all was clear she took a slow step forward. Robin started to walk in the tracks, and motioned for Jammer to fallow her. The creek bank was a lot lower here, and the slow moving creek was also wider. Even then it still took a lot of energy out of him, even with the trail somewhat broken for them by the cylon's feet. They had just about reached the top of the embankment to get to flatter ground, when Jammer felt a hand on his behind. It started to give him a little extra help up the last bit of the mud slick hill. A quick check with a turn of his head, let him know that Eva had caught up to them. It was a heart stopping moment, but he somehow kept from jumping out of his skin at the touch on his butt.

The large woman's extra bit of a boost helped Jammer up the last bit of the cylon run carved path in the mud. Jammer was energy spent, he leaned more forwarded and a little to the left after reaching the top of the creek bank. This let the human form cylon slide off his shoulders, and into the cold mud with an audible splat. It was not like he had drop a sack of potatoes, but it also was not that gentle. He was huffing for fresh air to fill his lungs, and sweating even in the cold damp air. Eva stepped passed him, and gave him a thumbs up. She added a big toothy smile, which a shark would have been proud of to the wave. It was just too bad the smile sent a cold shiver down Jammer's sweat stained back. She had two large rucksacks on her narrow back, which Jammer would have bet held everything in and around the cave that they had brought out. She walked past the hunched over form of Jammer, and started taking with the Amazon. When they were done talking, she returned she passed the E-pad to him. When Jammer looked at it, in white texted it said "We have friends and support about a mile away from this location. We have to get there before others catch up to us." It was not much of a message, but it did get the message across to the tired Colonial refugee. It was like a shot in the arm and his energy level picked up somewhat.

Jammer nodded to show that he under stood the message, then took a few deep breaths. He bent even farther over, and started to pick up the female cylon again. Robin put a hand on his shoulders, and when he made eye contact she shocked her head side to side. Jammer knew that this was also a negative jester for these two women. She passed a rucksack over to him, and then Eva and Jammer helped put the captured cylon in a fireman's carry across Robin's shoulders. Jammer was no looking forward to carry a heavy backpack after carrying the heavy cylon. But after a few seconds of adjustment, he found that the rucksack was more bulky than really that heavy. That did not mean that it was light, by any stretch of the imagination. The pace Robin set was brutal, but at least every 600 paces. They would switch out who was carrying the small framed but heavy human form cylon over their shoulders. Jammer, when he was not carrying the body, was covering the back trail they were leaving for the cylons to fallow. He had already found out this trail was being left on purpose. They did not have time to explain why it was being left so visible.

It was during one of these times of switching off who was carrying the cylon. That Jammer heard a strange whistling noise coming from the left of them. It had been Eva's turn to carry the dead weight of the cylon. When she heard the same sound, she shrugged her shoulders and dropped the female body, heavily into the mud and rock at her feet. Jammer was again confused at the sudden change. They all were running low on energy, and could use a little break. At first that was what Jammer had thought they were doing. As it turned out Jammer had another surprise that day. This one was a bit nice from the Colonial point of view.

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Eva took a deeper breath let it out. Then she took another one as she stood up more, and her back let her know she had over done it. She pitched her voice to carry just to the nearby wood line, and not that much farther. "Why don't one of you jerks come out give me a hand with this thing, instead of sitting on your butts, smoking and joking? They are a lot heavier than you would think. I swear she must have metal bones or something. Or they have lead lined nuclear reactors to keep their heavy butts moving." The tired had leached into her voice and she was tired enough that she did not care one little bit.

A tall man stepped from around one of the tall hard wood tree about two hundred feet from Eva. Jammer's head snapped towards the movement, he had not a clue that someone had been that close to him. Jammer knew that if that new comer had been a cylon, they would have all been dead. At this range a Centurion could pick what body part it wanted to hit, most times. Jammer looked around, and tried to judge the body language of his two traveling companions. He did notice that Eva might not like this tall man, but that was about all he could understand.

The tall stranger had a sly grin on his face that was just begging to have a right cross fist touch it right in the center of his face.. "Come on Eva. It's only a few hundred feet more, to the rest of the guys. Why stop now just before the finish line? You know?" The man was fighting not to laugh, he had some idea how thin the ice was that he was still standing on. His tone was still very mocking. "If you get used to failing, then you will not mind failing again and again." He started to give the group a slow and barely audible clap with his empty hands. Jammer had no idea what was being said by the man, but he was starting not to like this man in the strange cloths. He could fell his trigger finger starting to first itch, and then slowly move behind the trigger guard of the strange weapon he was still carrying. He had the feeling that he was the one being insulated somehow.

Robin jumped in with a retort first, only because Eva was still trying to catch her breath and could not put enough energy to get it from brain to moth quick enough. "David. Get you skinny butt over here, and help us! Before I show everyone some images from your last birthday party, which you really don't want anyone else to see." Robin was pointing at the female looking cylon still not moving in the mud at Eva's feet. Robin had a loud outside voice when she wanted to use it, kind of like this very second. Right at this second she did not care who had heard what she had told David. That was kind of the point, after all.

David gave a visible but slight shutter. "Amazon you're a cruel and mean women. You know that right?" He quickly walked over, and with the help of Jammer and Eva. They lifted the package on to the shoulders of the fresh carrier. It only took him a few seconds to adjust the weight to make it somewhat less uncomfortable. Jammer passed David back his ION rifle when the scout held out his hand, to signal that he was read for the weapon. When David had been within a few steps of the group, when he had taken off of the shoulder that it had been slung over.

Now that he was ready, David pointed the weapon in one direction across an open field. It was toward the front but off to the left of the way they had been traveling. "The defense line is about 300 feet that way at the base of the tree line. The idea is to use this little field as the engagement area for the ambush." He swept the weapon to show the open field they had just stated to cross. They had been so tired that they had not noticed that it was a clearing when they had stopped to change carriers of the human form cylon again.

Jammer had no idea what was being said between the three people, and it was really starting to get on his last nerve. He made a mental note again, to work harder to pick up as much of their Fraking lingo as he could. Right now he knew exactly five new words and a hand full of body jesters that he had picked up from the two women fighters, and that was soooo not enough. He had been very proud of himself for picking them up after only a hand full of hours, but now he knew without a doubt that is was not enough.

Jammer was looking back the way they had come. He was trying to see if he could see if anyone was fallowing them yet. When he turned back around, David had covered almost the rest of the "open field" at a very quick walk. Jammer was envious until he remembered that this guy had not had to carry a Fraking Cylon down a creek bed, and up and down muddy tracks all Fraking morning. He had to almost run to catch up to the rest of the group. That was just about to start passing the new guy and his heavy load. Jammer tapped a few quick words on the little computer, and passed it back to Robin as soon as he caught up to the side of the quick walking woman that was only about two inches shorter than his 6 foot 2 inch height.

Robin looked at the small screen, but held up one finger that she knew, he would recognize as a signal to wait for a few minutes. When the three of them had made it to the nearby tree line, Jammer could see five or six other people sit up in hasty firing positions on either side of his location. If anyone fallowed the trail they left behind in the mud and woods. It would be lead them right into the center of this defensive line. That was just what it seemed like they had wanted to do all along. He slid down the side of the nearest thick tree, until his mud covered behind was on the wet leaf covered ground. He was trying to slow his breathing down, and remembering that he was not in the best shape of his life anymore. Or for that matter was he as young as he once was right at that moment he was feeling every lost meal and day of his age.

He must have closed his eyes, because he did not see Robin come up to him. That is, until she drop the little computer screen into his open lap. The screen still had where he had typed in his question to her a while ago. "We are leaving a visible trail." What was new, was where she had typed "Yes. The better to lead them into a trap with. Are you up for that?"

When Jammer saw this, it was simple for him to come up with something to reply to her question so he did. The words "Frak Yes!" came out of his mouth before he could stop them. Jammer knew that they would not understand him, so he started tapping symbols on the screen as fast as he could. He also was thinking and patting himself on the back to knowing, why they had left the visible trail in their wake. When he was done typing and satisfied with what he had done. He passed along the tablet up to the tall woman looming over is seated form.

Robin took the pad and read the message. She had noticed that the word "Frak" was used a lot by this stranger in the short amount of time that she had known him. And she was already thinking, that it was a word not to be used in "good company." As her late mother would say, and the second word she already understood as a positive. VAI sounded a lot like yes to her ears, and this was comforted when she read the typed note on the little screen. It was the second and third line that she not prepared for. "Would love to. Can I keep the weapon?" Robin looked at the man for a long second, but did not give the screen back. She held out her hand with the palm down, spread her fingers apart then tilted left and right a few times, and had a slight smile on her face. Robin had already found out a secret form the 21st century military. That was, sometimes a simple hand jester can say more than ten lines or more of text.

This hand motion was like a wing wag maneuver that Jammer had seen Viper pilots preformed during demonstrations. Jammer had no idea what the sign meant, because it was not a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Like the two woman had used before. After some quick thinking on Jammers part, he worked out that it was like a half way jester. So he took it as a maybe, on keeping the weapons. He was happy about that, after all a maybe on keeping a direct energy weapon was worth the risk. The worst they could say was no, after all and take the weapon back. He was thinking about what everyone had said for as long as he could remember. That was that DEW's much less person portable ones, were imposable to make. IF he could get one, then it was something worth waiting on. Now if he could prove, to his people, that they did work and were as powerful as advertised. He gave the women a thumb up sign, and the friendliest smile he could get his tired face to make. He just hoped that his wife would not hear about it later. If she did? She would no doubt make him pay for it, but that was later. He just had to live threw the now, to get to have to deal with her later.

It was with a grim smile on his face that Jammer went to work. Jammer was setting up a firing position that would give him some kind of cover from any incoming fire, but would still give him a good firing lane into the open field. He was distracted for a few seconds, when a four wheeled contraption of some kind, came out of the deeper woods behind him. It was a semi-open toped transport, like the rough terrain rides back home, but with a more military look to the transport. The first thing he noticed was that it was a lot quieter than any off-road transport that had ever hear before. It had a very high ground clearance. It had four massive, tall, and heavy treaded black tires to cover the most inhospitable terrain Jammer could think of off the top of his head. This was the first non-hovering transport that Jammer had seen these strangers use.

Jammer was watching as it came to an abrupt stop, with the diver side angled toward Eva, Robin, and Jammer. Jammer could tell that it was only carrying two people, but it looked like it could carry two or three more people, if it needed to. One person was the diver, which Jammer could identify as Major Weston. The second person in heavy body armor in the back, and there was no way to know who they might be. There was, however, not a doubt in the world on what that person job was. Even though Jammer could not to tell if the armored figure was male or female. They were holding onto, what looked to be a rifle made for a giant or maybe a Cyclops out of legend. He thought that the weapon was a crew severed weapon, but it was like nothing he had ever heard of or seen before. Jammer found himself starring at the oddly mounted weapon. It did not look like it was a belt fed weapon, like any crew served weapon Jammer had ever seen before. The ammunition seemed to be feed by a huge box like magazine under mounted on the huge weapon. To Jammer's eyes the box magazine looked to be made to be handled by a lot bigger hand, than the person on the trigger and butt-stock today. Jammer was thinking that something was just odd about the scale, but he could not put his finger on why he was getting that feeling, then his eyes went wide.

"These people were after a lot bigger game, than the little patrol that the three of them had taken out that morning!" Thought, Jammer as he looked over his shoulder, to the still empty field that he hopped the enemy of man would enter soon. He had now seen at least another three people show up, since he had stumbled into this defensive line with the two women. It seemed that the defensive line was growing slowly. As more and more armed personnel, trickled in to the possible battle site with this strange enemy. This was going to be the first large scale battle between Rifter and Cylon that any of them knew about. Jammer started to sweat a little in the cool day air. He knew things were going to get hot and maybe very soon.

The Major hoped out from behind the steering wheel of the modified All-Terrain Vehicle like someone had activated Taser in the seat he was sitting in. He started talking the two women, and as he walked closer towards them with more than a little spring in his step. It seemed that Major Weston was very happy with what was going on, at the moment at least. In Mike Weston's mind he was careful not to say. "Leave it to these two, to not only bring back a contact from the camp government. But also be the ones that caught a human form cyclone alive, all on the say day. This pair of scouts was worth any problems, they might cause back in the forward base". When he was with in ear shot of the two women, he let his mouth work under careful guidance from his brain. That would be the one that was three but above his ass. "So Amazon, what gifts do you have for me today?" He said this, to the tall women. As he walked up on the three armed people, but very tired looking people.

Robin had been watching as the ATV closed the last few hundred feet, to the slowly growing defensive line. She knew what her boss was going to say, so when it came out of his smiling mouth? She was ready with a counter, which she had been working on for a few miles. "Gift Hell! We expect to be given both rewards. You tight wad! We have plans for those funds and you bloody well know it! Don't even joke about things like that, you dirty merc." Her broad smile took the sting out of the words falling from her mouth like a tidal wave with fangs. If those words had had come from some of the other people which had come with them to this new planet, those would have been fighting words. When Robin use the shaking pointing finger, it defiantly had the mom scolding a way word child look to those around and out of ear shot of what was being said.

Weston smiled at the tall female scout and ignored the wagging finger. He walked over to the still unconscious cylon, and looked up at Robin with a huge grin plastered on his face. He tapped the still cylon in the ribs, with his boot but she did not move. Weston looked up, "Are you sure she is still out? The Colonials say that they are quick and strong. Almost like they are gods or something along those line." Calling someone a god was a real thing and not metaphoric, since the coming of the magic rifts to old Earth. And those Rifts led to the coming of the Dark Age of Man. This group of humans had seen "gods", and people who thought they were gods. The thing was, most could prove the claim or be very convincing about their claims to be able to hold the title of gods.

Robin raised herself form the mud and walked over there the prize lying on the ground at Major Weston's feet. "I hit her with three full sized tranq darts in less than one minute. Even if she was a dragon, hiding in human form. She should be out for a few more hours at least." Now that she was standing within inches of the figure in the mud and the Major. She pitched her voice a lot lower. "Do you want her in the back of your ride, before we have any company?" She had assumed that Weston would want to take the prisoner back with him. If only because they could get her back to the camp a lot faster than Robin and Eva could by carry it there on foot.

Major Weston waved to the gunner, which was still on the ATV to come over to him. Jammer watch as the two women and the gunner pull out some kind of binding ropes, at first he had no idea what they were doing. He was all smiles as the trio went to work moving the non-responsive cylon lying on the ground. He had a very good idea what was going to happen, or at least an idea of what was going to happen in not the exact details. First the strangers flipped the cylon so that it was face down in the mud. Then the three humans pulled the arms back of the cylon and tied its wrist to gather behind the human forms back. One of the three people was always armed with what Jammer knew was the long barreled tranq gun, just in case the prisoner started to move on its own. After the hands were taken care of, then the knees were tied together. Last to be wrapped in the odd looking rope, were the ankles of the cylon. Jammer would have thought that was enough, but instead he became the first Colonial to see the term "Hog Tied" in a very practical since. That was because next they pulled the arms back and with a length of rope tied the tied hands to the tied ankles. This turned the cylon into almost a C shaped. It did not look like it was an enjoyable position for the cylon to be in from what Jammer could see. Robin then showed her incredible strength, by using that length of rope to pick up the smaller humanoid. A few steps later she was dropping the female cylon's belly first into the back of the four wheeled transport. She did this feat, all by herself. When she did that, Jammer stated to understand why they called her Amazon as a handle. She did have the look and act down pat. At least from what Jammer could remember from the Temple day classes he took as a kid. He wondered how long they had been calling her that handle. Then he wondered if he was brave enough to ask her the question. It did not take him long to figure out. He was not that brave after a vision popped into his head of him being tied up like that.

Jammer was enjoying the show. When he saw out of the corner of his eye some water that had collected in a muddy boot print ripple, stop, and ripple two more times then became steady rippling water. The motion was very odd, and it drew his attention to the motion. As he tried to work, out why the puddle would be acting that way. By the time it clicked into his mind, what it could be shaking of the ground. A strange bird sounds, started coming from up and down the line of fighters lain in the mud around him. Robin made three huge strides of her very long legs from the back of the ATV, and plopped down into the shallow fighting position, near the front of the ATV with the tied up cylon in the back. She had preparing the position, before being interrupted by the arrival of the Major. It was as ready as she was going to have time to make it, now. Major Weston was still moving forward, to use the hood of the four wheeled vehicle as a firing point. When Jammer rolled back on to his stomach, and looked across the open field that spread out in front of him at eye level. He was making a last adjustment to his body, when Robin tossed the little computer over to him.

When Jammer checked the device, the screen had in white texted. "Fire when you have a target. Don't wait for an order, but don't miss what you are firing at this time. The Major would be very upset with you, if you give them a warning about our planned attack or our location." He looked up from the glowing screen to see Robin looking at him with a stern and not smiling look on her face. He gave her a quick thumbs up, then pulled the metal folding stock tighter into his right shoulder. He sighted in on the opening between two trees that. He was pretty sure that they had walked between those two trees not even an hour before, on the other side of the little open field. While Jammer was looking down the high tech barrel his mind started to wonder again. Like how many cylons, they could have been able to rush out to find them anyway in this short amount of time? They had taken out seven cylons with just the three of them, so how hard of a fight could it be with this larger number of shooters? Jammer was again trying to get his breathing under control, but it was hard. He was hoping that they had enough people on this line, because the only heavy weapon he had seen was ten feet from him. He was betting that it was a double edge sword. The heavy firepower that weapon might bring would be helpful, but it would also draw a lot of returning fire from any attacking cylons trying to take the weapon out.

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It was either by luck or by design, but all of the patrolling cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders had been recalled to the Basestars for refueling. Or they had been sent out system, to check on what might have been a Colonial Raptor. A sensor ghost had been showing up for a few days now, lurking at the edge of the hidden solar system. That meant that when the radio transmission sent by Kathy had come in to the Hybrid in orbit and to Johns acting office down on the planet's surface. There was not a quick way to check up on the disturbing report, from the faster assets flying around under the cylons control. The nearest Centurion patrol was outside of the area called New Caprica. But it was almost exactly 180 degrees out, from the reported direction of the latest attack on the occupying cylons forces. John would not release the gathered Centurions at the main camp. At least not until he felt like he had enough firepower, which he thought he could overrun whoever was killing his minions. After about an hour, he sent the massive group of over 90% of all of the landed metal cylons, out the new gate that controlled the access to the human prison from the outside cold wet world. John had even able to talk a pair of two's and a pair of fives to "supervise" the dumber metal warriors. When they left human prison camp, to find out what Kathy had reported. The Number Ones were always good at getting the other models of cylons to do what they wanted. Sometimes it just took a little long than other times to get the job done.

All Cylons are strong, a lot stronger, and faster than a normal human that had ever stood against them in combat. On the other hand the human form cylons were not nearly tuff enough to keep up with even the oldest model of Centurion, on any day. Much less on a day, when the human forms cylon were loaded down with so much combat equipment. The four human like cylons were outfitted with captured Colonial equipment, to include a battle rifle and a pistol for each of the four members attached to the larger metal Centurions. They loaded up into the only other light wheeled transportation in whole of New Caprica. It was hoped it would increase their amount of land the human forms could cover in a given time, after all that was how the book said it was supposed to be done. No one, meaning the Number One's, had ever thought that ground transportation might be import. So none had been loaded up, brought out with the cylon fleet, or picked up when they had made their last supply pick up at a cylons supply point. It had not taken long to realize that the two wheeled transports on the planet would not be enough to meet all of the cylons requirements. They had already requested for some more to be brought out, to this spot of space in the back of beyond. The order transports would not be able to make it out this far for another eight months or so. But they should be in the next supply run out to them. What that meant for the cylons currently on this cold planet? It was that they had very few modes of transportation, besides walking if this one broke down on them. The four human forms in the sedan were right behind the mass of over 200 Centurions moving as fast as they could. But the human forms were still were not be in front of the wave of death. This was due to the slower speed the sedan could make over the rough and muddy terrain. It was not the terrain that the low slung street car was designed to be trying to traverses. This was also why the Colonials had not been using it, preferring the cargo truck.

The other Centurion patrol that had been outside of the field of landed spaceships, made it to the area of last reported contact. Well before the mass of death that had left the main gate reached the same area after traveling one tenth of the distance. The patrol of metal made it to the lip of the top of the embankment, and paused for a whole human heart beat. They then used their massive legs to jump up, and then pulled down by gravity. They were landing with brown water splashes, into the creek bed below. It was all in one smooth motion and a credit to the original humans who had designed the original model of Centurion. The red eyed machines quickly checked out the area, or scene of the ambush that had silenced their kind so quickly. They did not find much to help then work out what had happened to their brothers. The off grey wood smoke had dissipated in the warming air of the advancing day. So they only had the geo location from Kathy's transition, and the wreckage to identify the latest combat site. What the metal cylons found were six Centurions with holes blown into them and a few odd half-moon shaped craters melted in the bottom of the creek bed. There build in systems did not pick up any evidence of explosives, beside cylon made ones used in the built in weapons systems they carried. As far as the cylon patrol could work out was that those Centurions had died, and they had fired into one side of the bank. Then one by one the metal war-machines noticed something that they could categorize.

They reported back to John and the orbiting Hybrid, that they had found tracks in the mud, which looked to be moving down the creek. They had no emotion when they also reported information. That the tracks had degraded so much by then, that the computers could not positively identify them as human made tracks. John ordered the whole patrol to fallow the tracks and auto report every 150 seconds their locations. The "lead" Centurion did not flinch at the unnecessary orders. It just sent a message back that it would comply with the directive. John was again very upset about the attack. But he was also happy, that so far one of the Centurions was in the process of being down loaded into a new body. He was thinking that now maybe for once, he would finally know who was killing his minions and more importantly how they were doing that little bit of magic. The sooner John found out how they were doing it. Then that would mean the faster he could come up with something to fix the problem to what was stopping the down load process. That is before John lost more support among the other Cylons for his leadership. Nothing would shake their faith in his leadership, like the idea of true death. John would not admit it that this worried him also.

The main wave of Centurions adjusted there course when the Hybrid in a ship ten of hundreds of miles over there head sent them updated information. They were now to use a path that the cylons had pounded into the soil with the Centurions metal feet since they had arrived on this planet. It was a well-marked path, with already located way-points. That could be used in case they needed to call in air support from any over flying Raiders. The scouts that had found the ambush site had arrived at the muddy path first, but only had just started moving down the muddy foot path. They were still fallowing the trail that had been left by the unknown attackers in the muddy prints of the cylons that had passed before them. The course change was automatically reported to the Hybrid. The high orbiting ship would pass it along to all the cylons that had requested to be updated.

This was where the human forms would have to fallow the faster Centurions on foot, leaving the comfort of the sedan behind on the other side of the creek. There four wheeled supported, but not four wheel drive transport, just was not designed for this type of terrain. It had bogged down before they could comply cross the deep mud of the muddy creek bed. The wave of metal had to slow down now, so that they could all stay together or at least close enough to be mutually supporting the two different groups.

It was not a unified command structure that the ground force cylons were working with. A command crack showed up, when the one of the Number Two's ordered the faster Centurions to speed up. He wanted them to close the distance faster with the unknowns. John had over ruled him within a few seconds of the order being given. John wanted to concentrate all the firepower; he could at one point in time. Now the pursuit was only going to be as fast as the slowest cylons in the group. It was faster than an encumbered human could move in the same terrain, but it was a lot slower than was technically possible for a cylon force of this size. According to the book of tactics the, that is.

The front rank of centurions was a wall of off chrome metal ten across, it would have been wider, but that was as wide as they could get with the overgrowth and still see each other. That front rank of metal held Centurion number 156897. It did not talk him long until he noticed that there might be a field ahead. He automatically passed on the information to the slower moving human type clyons behind them. The line of Centurions moved closer to the edge of the wood line, but did not slow down, note even a step or pace. One of the chrome killing machine caught movement out of the corner of its red eye. When it turned to see better what was moving, the movement had added sound to the distraction. 156897 now could see that one of its compatriots was now in two different parts lying across the muddy ground. 1566897 quickly replayed the recorded audio for the last 1.5 seconds. It had not picked up any noise that might have identified the cause of the loss of the Centurion that was now in a top half and a bottom half right at the upper hip/ lower chest area. It did not have time to worry after it's gunned down compatriot, the report was auto sent back. That was because it two was blow in half by a silent and invisible fire that had come from across the field.

Now that a target had been identified in the local area, the rest of the wave of metal rushed forward at full combat speed without orders. Cylons were not known for their ability to come up with, any very complex combat strategies. Charging into the guns had worked for them, and that had been very successful so far using that simple strategy. It was again used, but it was the first time it had been used on this cold planet. Only time would tell if it would work…. or not. A massive tidal wave of metal came out of the wood line, and it was met by a massive wave of incoming fire. Very few of the weapons made a sound that could carry very far. But even with the Ion weapon it was not enough to stop all of the moving targets in a single volley. The limited numbers of humans on the other side of the field did not have time to reload spent E-clips. Once they were spent supplying there stored energy to the weapons that were holding them. The humans on the other side of the field from the attacking cylons just went to whatever type of long ranged weapon they had with them, and continued to fight. As the cylons closed in on the defensive lines, the metal wave was met not by quite Ion fire any more. It was the booms of hand carried rail gun rifles, plasma fire, and silent laser fire. The total volume stayed about the same, different weapons use power differently and so had a different number of "shots" they could make on a given size of E-clip. The humans on the other end of those weapons had been highly trained and over the last eight months. Every one of the shooters in the field had knocked the rust off. They were putting fast and accurate fire into the now thinning wave of metal coming at them. The hail of fire now was anything but quite, and gave the cylons something to aim their own projectile weapons at. As a single living being, the cylons adjusted course to better bring the enemy under fire. The adjustment helped them align with the arm mounted and hand carried weapons. When those weapons started to fire in a massive wave of outgoing fire. It did not have the effect that they were used to seeing on the battlefield.

########

Jammer was looking down the long rifle barrel and was watching battle unfold in front of him. He had taken the part in the message about missing to heart, and that the senor military person would not like it. Also to heart, this was not something new for Jammer to have to deal with. After all what would Colonel Tigh have done in his place? So he waited till the rest of the firing line, had opened fire on the advancing Centurions. Jammers felt like his brain had stop, and the sweat start to pour off of his forehead at the sight of the massive wave of charging metal. He had only seen this number of cylons all in one spot, one other time in his life. That was the day the cylons had taken over the muddy field that was New Caprica. This was the first time that he had seen this number of Centurions attack towards him. You know, the Best ground assault device known to the Colonial Military, this was his worst nightmare. Now that nightmare had come to physical form, and for a few heart beats he wanted to run for his life, screaming as he went deeper into the forest to escape the wave of war-machines. Then Jammer fought the mental demons down and locked them into a safe spot in his brain.

The first cylons were visible but he was not training this weapon on them, and even though the range was short. He was comfortable not being the first person to shot and held his fire with a shanking finger. The Cylons were advancing threw the open area provided by two large trees, with a line of smaller trees between to end pair of forest titans. Then Jammer saw a bright ball of light appear on the chest of one of the first Centurions threw the built in weapons optics on the rifle in his hands. After the first burst of light energy, the machine was falling to the ground in what looked like two different but large pieces. It was not the last to do so, as the rest of the human fighters open fire on the advancing chrome machines in a mad volley. The metal wall was meet with a wave of energy weapons fire, which started eroding the number of cylons like a fire hose on a mud pile.

The outgoing fire was quite, but the effect was pronounced like a sunbeam at midnight. As the massive wave of metal started to come out of the cover provided by the trees. Jammer now had a clear shot and lined up on this target center mass, just like he had been trained to do over the years in the Colonial Military. He let a little bit of a breath out and lightly pulled the trigger, just like he had been trained to do. He missed with the first shot again with the energy bolt going down and to the right again. But a quick second, shot took a Centurion he had fired at low in the body of the running machine. That was about were the legs mounted to the main chassis. Both of the still moving legs came off of the Centurion, at the mounting point. The damaged point was now, not able to take the stress of the rapidly moving metal legs. All three part of cylon were now down in the small open field, which was quickly turning into a slaughterhouse.

Jammer had a huge grin on his face as he saw the cylon bury itself in the dirt of the burn scare that was now a small open field. Jammer then moved to the next target that sometimes someone else would also hit that same target, which he had been firing at. Jammer had no idea how many times; two or even three people would hit the same cylon. It was a waist of firepower, when they should have needed only one or maybe two hits to make the cylon combat ineffective. Jammer did not care after only five second of combat, he was scanning and shooting whatever crossed this weapons sites. Sometimes he would have to hit a target twice to make sure it was out of the fight, and had stopped moving. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears as they serviced targets on the small wet field before him. Jammer would not be able to remember how many times he shot or how many hit he was able to make on the attacking cylons.

Jammer was sitting up his site at the end of the odd rifle, on his next target on the field. That was when he noticed, that it was carrying one of the cylon heavy weapons. Those weapons had been so divesting, when the cylons had found them again. As near as anyone Jammer had talked to, about these new weapons both in the camp and outside of it. They seemed to think that it was a one of two classes of heavy weapons. About a third of the people Jammer had talked to thought the weapons were just a KEW pulled right off a Raider, or Heavy Raider, or maybe an anti-Viper weapon mount from a Basestar. Then the weapon might have been modified, so that a single Centurions could hand carry the heavy weapon onto the battlefield. Jammer and most of the hanger knuckle draggers he had talked to. Had thought it was a scaled down version of that type of weapon, but that now fired a round that was about 0.75 of inch or so across when it left the barrel.

No matter what was the parent or lineage of this weapon, it was Gods damn freighting weapon when a Centurion was firing one in your general direction. And a weapon that could chew threw body armor, buildings, and anything you might be hiding behind with little issues was very dangerous. The Centurion holding the massive weapon turned to one side, and it looked like Jammer could have walked down the barrel of the hand carried giant rifle. Jammer ducked out of line of site of the battle, just in the nick of time. A line of heavy impacts crossed the very outer lip of his position. This was visible as a dozen fountains almost two feet high made of mud, rock, and roots flying into the air. Jammer had only just missed qualifying to get in to flight school and it was not because he had slow reaction time. Jammer recovered from the near miss was just about to come back up into his fighting position. That was when a massively loud report came from behind him that almost caused Jammer to need to change his underwear. Whatever it was went screaming over his head by what seemed like only inches without any indication about what was the direction of flight. Jammer did not have any ear protection in his sensitive ear canals much less a helmet of any kind. And he had not even thought about have any ear protection, right until right that second. He had been so use to the amazing quite of these new weapons, that he thought the truck behind him must have been hit by the heavy cylon weapons fire that had missed him.

When the second blast happened behind Jammer, he raised his head a little. Now he could turn his head some, and see what was happing behind him. Jammer could see the gunner manning the giant rifle on the parked ATV, fired a third time and Jammers ears were ringing again from the abuse of that strange and powerful weapon firing so close to him. Jammer was a ground crew-member, with almost a decade on the job. The one of the big things that was beat into their heads was always have something, to protect your hearing. Now he was taking the time to protect what was left of his hearing, and worrying less about the attacking cylons for a few seconds. Jammer pulled a black set of Colonial made hearing protection from his outside coat pocket. It did not take but a few seconds to do this, and then he went back to firing. He had been using the ear plugs; so that he could sleep threw his wife's snoring at night. The sound level was a lot higher here on this defensive line. The plugs worked, not great but it was better than having nothing at all in his ear canals. Jammer was back in his position with the weapon stock in his shoulders. When he started looking down the barrel he had a quick thought. "Well, if the chrome domes wanted to bring in heavy weapon? Then the humans could bring in some fire support of their own to level the playing field." Jammer started to fire again into the on rushing enemy, with a smug smile plastered on his face. He sighted in on one of the Human looking cylons and pulled the trigger. He was reworded as soon as his trigger hit the stops of the strange rifle. With a sold hit on one of the Number Two's, dead center of the male looking chest. Jammer could see, threw the built in optics, which the impacted of the fire had blown a hole in the heavy body armor that the human form had been wearing. The Number Two was starting to rise again out of the wet weed covered field. Just when it looked like the cylon might rise. That was when it looked like the human like cylon was hit with what must have been a God's sizes Shotgun blast. The Cylon came apart under the fire. Jammer could tell that it was defiantly not getting up from that hit ever again.

Jammer was firing and hitting his targets more regular now that his brain had worked out what his body needed to do to score hits on the attacking cylons. Then just as Jammer, was getting fully into the swing of killing cylons. Jammers weapon suddenly quite working on him. He pulled the trigger a second and a quickly a third time. But the results were the same, nothing happened. He had no idea that he had run out power for the weapon to use, which caused the massive damage to targets. He only knew enough about the weapon to site on a target and fire weapon, rinse and repeat. He did not know about E-clips, which would have been covered in a later class given by one of the two women, maybe. It really would not have mattered if he did have that class. He did not have an extra E-clip with him, even if he would have known what to do with it. This did give him the opportunity, to watch the rest of the battle as it unfolded before him. It was not a real battle as those things went and where written about. It was more closely related to a different word, it was more of a slaughter than a battle. Then again after how the Cylons had started this war. Jammer was not going to be squeamish about how the rest of the war was going to be handled by the human side of the conflict. He was even beginning to enjoying himself, as he saw each of the cylons fall to the ground in front of the impromptu defense line. He was scanning the battle site from left to right and back again. It was during one of these scans, out of the corner of his eye. He was something moving in the sky in the distance. There could only be one group flying in the skies of this planet, which Jammer could think of. And that was not going to be a good thing for him and the people around him. Jammer started yelling, and pointing towards the sky, to alert the rest of the people around him to the coming danger.

Robin was keeping an eye on who she thought of, was an untrained person with a loaded weapon. That also was standing, well laying way to close for her comfort. If they did not need every weapon on the line, she would have tied him in the ATV. Not too far from the Clone they had captured and had Hog Tied in it. She did have to admit that, so far. He had done okay. That did not mean that she was not keeping an eye on him. He still was an unknown quantity and unknowns, could get you killed. And unknowns with weapons could get you killed a lot quicker, no matter what world you were on at the time or the unknown person's intention. When the man started to yell and point up into the sky. She was able to quickly react and get her scope mounted weapon pointed in the direction, to see what was causing the issue for the green horn. It did not take her long to find the approaching scimitar shaped ships under the high ceiling of clouds.

"Damn" thought Robin, She had hoped that they would have a while before one of the flying machines made a show of itself today. This had been planned for, at least, so Robin alerted the rest to the new threat that was quickly approaching. She was impressed, this guy might be a green horn. But he did have a set a very sharp eyes. "Major! We have two buzzards coming in right at us, to spoil the fun." She pointed in the direction of the approaching Cylon Raiders that Jammer was still waving his arms about and pointing. If Major Weston had been much farther from her, she would have had to use her built in radio to carry the distance. She did giver herself a mental thank you that they had not brought out the modified Glitter Boy Boom Gun on the ATV. That would have been made fight much less speaking near the command car impossible.

Major Weston heard his name being called out and saw more than heard what was being yelled at him by the scout. He quickly looked up and into the general direction the two people were pointing at, when his name was called over the rising noise level of the reaping of the field in front of him. He did need to think hard, about what was being said. He did not even smile or wave back to the two gyrating people. He just activated his communications device, and pushed the top mounted button long and hard for three times. This was the prearranged signal of an air raid, which went to everyone who had a radio in their little deployed group would be able hear. It was hopped that just sending the three "clicks" that it would preserve the surprise awaiting the strange flying craft.

This was another weapons test, because only ION weapons were to be used against the enemy ground fighting machines. That is unless there were special orders given, like today's battle. Major Weston dropped the almost spent E-clip and put another one into well of the weapon in a smooth well practiced movement. This air attack had been planned for and even hoped, and now it would seem that the flying craft would make an appearance after all. It they had not come, then Major Weston would have had to plan another attack, to run this particular weapons test. With his weapon reloaded with a fresh energy supply. The Major activated the targeting systems, and started tracking the incoming flying attack craft. Someone was about to have a very bad day, and it was going to be happening to a group that was not used to it happening to them.

##########

The two Cylon Raiders slowed to just above the stalling speed of the craft, as they got nearer the reported battle site. The first mission these two dog smart craft needed to do, was find out where the enemy might be. That way they could start having an affect the battle, from there superior position over the battlefield. After they found that bit of information. Then, they could make another overhead pass, and provide the much needed fire in support of the ground troops of the cylon force. The two craft would make as many attack runs as needed, until the battle was over or more Raiders can finish refueling and join the battle.

That was the plan made by the cylons, and just like plans made by humans. It did not last long, after contact was made with the enemy. The pair of Raiders lined up on over one side of the wood line after coming in from orbit. The area they were over flying was the same one that the cylons had charged out off, and angled towards the more open part of the field. The pair of attacking cylon Raiders did not know that they were under attack, until it was too late for them. They were only getting odd readings from there sensor on the far side of the wood line, that was confusing the dog smart craft. The readings were not matching any threat they knew of. It made since to the controlling parts on the two trans-atmospheric fighters, to assume that there were not any threats. There could only be three types of readings, according the code built into the flying cylons. That being cylon, colonial, or no treat, it was not quite binary but it was close. On top of that the biologic control parts were not made to be that smart in the first place. That was one of the many reason that they did not fare that well against the greatly outnumbered human piloted Vipers.

That was when the number two Raider or trailing craft. Took a hit of some kind, on the leading edge of the craft as it knifed thought the thickening damp air. It was a heavy hit and it did shake the craft enough to be noticed by the biologic control unit. But the damage was nothing like a hit from what a Viper would have caused. That single hit still shook the Raider, all the way to the core or thrust frame of the C shaped craft. The Dog or monkey smart brain, could feel the pain of the damage, but was confused by it also. There were holes in the data on why it had been damaged and by what? Nothing was targeting it and it was not a biological, humans called it a bird strike or a micro meteor this deep in the atmosphere.

The Raider did not know what had hit it. Then it did notice a strange energy surge, making its way up from the bottom side of the right wing. It was moving quickly, but not at the speed of light like the energy that feed the ship's needs. It seemed to be heading towards the center, and thicker part of the cylon flying craft. Everything from the area of the strike and behind the surge was numb. The Raider had no idea what was going on in the quickly growing numb area, and it was too dumb to wonder why that might be a danger. The hard outer armor layer of the Raider class craft had been breached. Parts of the craft were coming off, because of the sudden loss of aerodynamics. Due of the new hole that had been punched in the bottom of the wing near the leading edge. The attacking Raider stayed on target until it was again hit, by a ball of lightning like discharge. The Cylon now knew it had been hit again, versus only sensing it had been damaged somehow. That was because, this time the damage was near the nose of the Raider, and it could see what was happing before the sensors went dead due to overloading circuits and it started going numb there also.

The damage now was heavy and had now crossed the point, where is programing said. That it should return to base or get within down loading range of the resurrection capable unit, as quickly as it could. One part of the Biologic control unit was surprise how quickly this had happened, but only one part of its under powered brain. The fast attack craft had started to pull up. It wanted to put some more distance between it, and whoever was firing at it. That was when another massive energy surge hit the Raider, and it was starting to play havoc with its internal systems in the aft area. Then it just died. In a very literal sense, it had died. That was when one of the strange energy surges hit its organic parts of the cylon Raider and it did not react well to this event. Without an organic part to control the machine, the moving air acted on the control surfaces of the metal attack craft. The climbing attack craft, just did a wing over and started falling back down the gravity well. With the left side wing having a bit more lift, than the damaged right wing. That cause the flip, and it burned into the middle of the open muddy field below where it had started the day.

The second Raider made it farther or closer to the target. Before it had been hit with three rifle ION blast or burst, in less than a pair of seconds between all of the hits it took. This Raider, also died and fell from the sky. But this time it fell behind the human defensive line and exploding as it made contact with the unforgiving ground and trees. Major Weston was again a bit lucky where it landed, and the explosion was harmless to the human's fighters. Before the pair of Raiders died in the middle of their attack run. They had not been able to report anything of any real value, back to the Basestars and the Number One that was back at the landing field of Colonials. It had happened to quick and with no warning, and on top of that. If that was not enough to cause reporting/recording issues. The pair of flying craft, would not be able to down load, to report what they had seen and experienced before they had been shot down. This was the primary way that reports and scouting data was relayed into the cylons main computer network. The pair of Raiders had died just like some many Viper pilots had died on that first day, when this war had kicked off again with the cylon sneak attack.

John would be very un-thrilled about the lack of information that the larger and more powerful scouting systems, and attached DRADIS on the pair of Raiders, should have provided him. The second Raider had died, about the same time as the last ground bound cylon had. It had fallowed its higher flying cousin, into death not so loving embrace. But this time, most would not make it to a new metal or biologic body. Not this time.

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Major Weston watched threw his weapons built in optics. As the last and visibly damaged Raider gophered into the soft wet ground, not far behind the defensive line he had order set up. He was surprised that they had taken the two fighters out that easily. He and the other planner had expected to have to fire more than just a few of the missile at fighter craft, when they came around for a second pass. Those missiles should have been enough to take out a few attacking fighters, or enough to make sure they stayed a good distance from the battle site. He was also very surprised that there had "only" been two attacking craft. And both of them belonged to the smaller craft type. It was strange but he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It they had been back on Rifts Earth, they would have been in some real trouble. But it seemed that this new enemy, was not that advanced in the art of making armor as the place he and his people had come from. What most people on the defensive line did not know was that Weston had three people in full powered armor hiding off the line. They were on the way to this location of the second craft that had crashed. They would not make it to the crash site, and back for another hour the main camp, at best. He looked around the area then come to a conclusion. They could not stay here that long or even as long as hoped for in the original plan. He hit the horn that was mounted on the large ATV that blasted the damp air around with sound waves. This was the signal that everyone knew meant to come to him, wherever the ATV might be. When he thought that the bulk of them could hear him. He took a deep breath and started using his outside voice and started talking as the rest of them finished closing the distance to him. If anyone missed something, they would be able to catch up later. He wanted to get the most people working on his idea as fast as he could. He was shaking his head when he checked in internal clock. The entire battle had last less than 120 seconds from first firing to the last walking metal man fell to the mud.

"Okay people lets go grab what we can! We are really short on time, so you all better make it count with whatever it is you do grab." He pulled out a black plastic bag with a special zipper from the passenger side of his ATV. He turned and found the first group he wanted to give a mission to. He pointed into the general area they were standing together. "Amazon, Eva and your friend, I want you all to take this, and collect one of the Clone and put it that." Weston tossed the rolled up body bag in there general direction, and kept talking. "I think the brain trust back at camp, might be able to use them to run test on them. I've got half a dozen more body bags in the ATV, if you need them. I'm glad I did not need them for any of you people." He stopped talking for a few seconds and quickly scanned the crowed looking for an answer to this next question. "No one called out being hurt. If you're hurt sing out now, and go see the medic. I don't need hurt people, winding up dead, because a wound went untreated." He stopped talking for a few more seconds, but not one voice piped up, that they needed any medical attention. "Okay You and You." He pointed to the next two to come up to him. "Those Clones had different types of weapons than the metal ones. Collect as many as you can along with any ammunition you can find."

Major Weston pointed to another knot of people off to one side of the group of defenders. "You two. Some of those chrome jobs had a larger type of weapon that they carried with them instead of the built in ones. Remember those images taken by Rex and passed around? I want at least one of those, which looks like it can function again. The rest of you lot." Weston wave to the rest of the small group. "We can pack in about a quarter ton of metal in the ATV. Let's go about collect it out of that field over there. After that? You pick up whatever metal you can, and bring in it back to camp. If you see one of them that seem to still be working? Use your ION base weapons on them and put them down…hard style." Major Weston looked up to the gunner on the ATV as the crowed started to thin out as people started about the tasks he had given out. "Matt keep an eye on things out there. I'm going to go look at that thing." He was pointing at the crashed Raider almost in the middle of in the field, and would technically be called behind enemy lines. The last of the humans broke away from the ATV when Weston toke his first step toward the battle scared field. They headed in singles or in groups, out into the field to complete the tasks they all had been given. Everyone was moving with a purpose, knowing that more metal combatants could show up any minute. If that happened, they would not be able to fire from cover. They all would be totally exposed in the open muddy field. That would fall into the category of "not a good thing". Major Weston had assigned those tasks, only to make sure they got done. He was hoping that his fighters would pick up anything that looked "interesting".

Jammer, Eva and Robin found were most of the human form cylons were spread out on the ground of the battlefield. It seemed like the sound of battle had spurred them on to join the rest of the Centurion and charged the field in a tight group. They all had been stopped within a few hundred feet of each other, and were now in one slowly growing red wet spot in the battle damaged field. The battle had stated and ended so fast, that even with the cylons renowned speed. The attacking cylons had not been able to spread out much from there traveling separation they had while traveling in search mode. They had formed only into a large grouping, as they had been moved through the wet woods, and they had seemed to have stayed that way. Eva and Robin noticed that the human forms or Clones had not understood the military term of keep your spacing. It was used so that one mortar shell, grenade, or some other badness did not take out more than one of you at a time.

It was at the third human form that the trio had found, that Eva had dropped the body bag next to it. While Robin and Jammer were taken care of putting the mostly complete, but very bloody body in the bag. Eva would drop off parts of from the other human form cylon bodies, to be put in the same leak proof bag as the mostly whole body. As they were zipping it the very over filled bag close, Jammer took the time to type on the little computer device. He passed it to Robin and hope she would take the time to read it. He felt like it was very important and maybe even time sensitive.

Robin took the offered device and set it off to one side not wanting to stop what she was doing, and once the bag was fully closed she read the screen. And then typed quickly on the screen, and passed back to Jammer to read. The screen said only had a short note, but it carried a battlestar's worth of importance. Even if he did not agree with the statement, but he was out numbered and out gunned. "We need to wait till we are in a safer area to talk. This is very important for my people."

Jammer did not like this, but it was the right thing to do. And the bad part was that he knew and understood that. But he still did not have to like it. He nodded to Robin and put the screen into his back pocket to keep it safe. Then reached down and grabbed both of the cloth handles of the now very full black plastic no leak bag. It took him a few adjustments, but with one handle in each of his dirty but strong hand, he was ready. Robin took the time to move about eight feet away from Jammer, and reached for her pair of handles at the other end of the black bag. With a grunt she picked up her end first, and then Jammer picked his four foot wide side with his own grunt of effort.

The body bag at the low point about at its center, and only cleared the ground by about 18 inches. And that was only some for the time, most of the time it was a lot less than 18 inches. Now the two of them carried the body and body parts all of the way back to Major Weston's waiting modified ATV. They already had a long day, so they were not up to doing a heavy task like this very fast. They did the job as fast as they could before the adrenaline wore off. The odd pair dropped the body bag next to the driver side of the ATV with a soft plop sound coming from the bag to ground interface. They were still catching their breath and recovering from the work out. When Robin reached in and pulled the now awake, but still tied up cylon into a sitting position in the back cargo area of the ATV. Robin gave a head motion for Jammer to help her and the two of them stated using the center rope as a hand holds. With a four handed great tug, the cylon was out of the ATV. About a half second later it was belly down in the mud again with a not so soft contact point. When the cylon in the mud. Jammer noticed that someone had put a solid looking bag over the cylon's head. It must have happened while they had been collecting biologic material. Jammer was too tired to say or type anything out. He just looked at Robin and raised an eyebrow, and waited to the strong woman to maybe explain what she was planning on doing. Now that they were "Safer" off the open mud field.

Before Robin could hold her hand out asking for the thin computer, they had to shift position to a few feet away from the ATV. Three large men each dumped massive arm loads of parts of Centurions, into the now empty cargo area. In a few more minutes, two of the burnt looking heavy weapons carried by the cylons were dumped into the back ATV, as well as what looked like extra reloads for the heavy weapons to use. While Robin and Jammer watched, the heavy weapons were followed by more Centurion parts. They were mainly chest and legs. More and more people were bring in arm loads of metal as the tired pair watched. That was until a buzzer sound started coming from the front seat area of the ATV. It was not that loud, like say a standard sized air horn. It was more like what you might hear while cooking food in your kitchen. It did get one's attention without you needed to go see a doctor after to many blast of sound.

The gunner, which has still been manning the mounted weapons systems. Hopped down from the weapons mount on top of the ATV, and checked to see what was making the noise. When he looked up from the console, his face protection shield was open. Anyone close by could tell in an instant, that he was not happy. "Well boys that is it. We are fully loaded, but we need room for the fragile stuff." He was pointing to the tied up cylon and the body bag. As it turned out, the device making the sound was part of the Off Road Management Systems. It was letting the driver know, that it was almost to the maximum safe cargo loading of the ATV set up for cross country driving.

Jammer had no idea what was being said, but the strangers around him started to groan and returned to the cargo area at the back of the ATV. They then started pulling out some of the metal from the small area at the rear of the strange transport one part at a time. The Gunner kept checking a readout and yelled for them to stop unloading. Then two of the strangers grabbed the body bag still at the ATV's side. And on to the top of jagged metal it went like a sack of crap. Jammer was amazed that the fabric did not rip on the sharp metal when it was just thrown on top of the sharp metal. When the body filled bag was just thrown on top of the sharp parts of cylons. He had no idea, that the thin plastic of the body bag. Would have not been penetrated by anything, but modern damage weapons. Even most Colonial side arms, would not have punched a hole it the tough plastic that incased the human form body and extra body parts inside. Next on the mass in the back of the ATV, was the now very awake and not very happy hog tied female cylon.

Jammer had a sly grin on his face when the struggling cylon was being lifted off the ground one more time. He was thinking, that she would really not have like what she was laying on when she found out. And he did not doubt that she would find out about it sometime in the near future. "I just hope that I'm there. When the God's damn machine finds out, that she was using bodies of her on kind as padding for her little ride." This thought went ricocheting around Jammers head, as now a huge smile went across his face. Then he noticed what was going on along one of the sides of the large wheeled transport that he was standing around. It was strange enough, that he forgot about what he was thinking about reference the cylon.

Jammer was watching as the Centurion parts were tied into groups on the ground, they had not done this for the parts they had loaded on the ATV. Jammer had no idea what they were going to do with the parts, but they seemed very interested in them. That was when one of the men dropped his rucksack to the ground not that far from Jammers feet near a pile of bundled Centurion parts. Jammer could second person help him. It did not take long, and they attached what must have been 60 pounds of cylon made metal parts to the back carry device. Then with help from Robin, the other man put the massive pack on his back. After what looked like some adjustments to two side straps on the odd rucksack. Off into the deep woods the strange man started walking, at not that slow of a pace. When the metal pile in the mud was now gone, Jammer noticed that on the hood of the ATV. Cylon parts were being bundled and added to rucksacks also. While Jammer was taking in all that was going on around him. He noticed that Eva had joint the group some time while he had been looking the other way. Maybe while the cylon being man handled on to the back at the ATV. Eva was talking with who Jammer knew was the gunner, when the Major came back from the open field. It was good timing for the Major to show back up from his little trip to see the crashed cylon Raider.

That was because arms started to fail between man and woman and when you added the tone of voices being used on both side. It made it seemed that things were getting more heated, and might go to blows in a few more seconds. The Major listened to the women then reached in the ATV, and passed her what looked like an empty medium sized rucksack from the passenger seat. Robin walked up to Jammer and held out her hand with the palm up like she wanted something. After a half a second, Jammer passed to her the thin computer. He knew that he had a strange look on his face when he passed it over. He knew something was up, and he did not know if it was a good thing or not. He was again hating that he could not understand what was being said around him. Robin started tapping like a mad women as soon as she could get both hands on the little device.

While Robin was tapping on the little computer, Eva brought over the rucksack with a lot cylons parts tied to the outside and handed it to Jammer. Robin was still tapping on the little screen, when Eva stated to push Jammer to walk deeper into the woods. Jammer was very confused, and he had no idea what was going on. But all he had in his hands, was a weapon that had stopped working. Against two people who were armed, and had shown that they knew how to use these weapons. And they were a lot better with them than he was. As they were walking Jammer noticed that it was just the three of them moving in one direction. Before he went too far into the woods, Jammer turned to look back at the site of the battle. He noticed that Major Weston was strapping in behind the driving wheel of the heavily loaded ATV. So he also would be leaving the battle site very soon. Jammer could only see maybe two or three other people left, at the biggest defeat of cylon ground forces of this war. The rest had already blended back into the deeper woods, out of sight. Jammer tuned and took the few quick steps needed to catch back up to the female scouts. He had no idea how far they were going to have to walk, so he did some adjustment to the rucksack and tried to make it more comfortable. It was not that heavy with maybe 30 pounds of cylon used parts, but they had a long day already. Carrying that human form cylon had used up a lot of his energy reserves. He put his head down and just put one foot in front of the other, and just was keeping the longer legs of the woman in front of him in view. He had a gut feeling that it was going to be another long walk.

Jammer was getting in the zone of just walking in the woods and lost track of the passage of time. Eva was leading them then with him fallowing, and trying to step in the woman's foot prints. Robin was the last and would periodically stop tapping on the screen. She would turn, and check to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them from behind. She also would stop to work on something in the trail behind the trio. Then she would quickly catch back up to the other two walking slowly in front of her. It was doing one of the catching up moves, that she passed the screen back to Jammer with a tap on his off weapon hand.

Jammer was thankful of the distraction that the long set of text on the screen. He would read the screen, and when he would reach a spot in the message that did not make sense to him. He would make a note on the little device, and pass it back to Robin to clarify what she was saying in her long note. This distraction did make the walk seem to go faster, with Jammers mind able to focus on something else besides the walking or the legs in front of him. One of the things that cause a big issue between them, was when she used the word "doctor" in her message. He had become very excited that this group had almost a dozen people trained like Dr. Cottle. Gods knew that they could use that number of medical trained personnel. If only to help with the load that man had been working under for so long. It turned out a little differently, after a few to and fro's. For Jammer to understand that to them a "Doctor". They could be from a certain number of different types of highly schooled people working on a project, and most of them in fact were not medically trained personnel. They did have more than a few medics trained up on first aid and a little better than that. But it was not the wind fall that Jammer had hoped it would be, when he first read that part of the message. Still medically trained personnel were in very short supply in the Rag Tag Fleet.

After the issues with the word Doctor, the next issue had been why they had collected the human form bodies. Robin had to explain and re-explain that in some detail. It was that they had some laboratory equipment set up, and some smart people. Who might be able to work out some way, to tell the difference between a human and human form cylon. That had been the reason to collect the bloody human form cylons, for some science experiments. Jammer had liked the part of the message, when she said. "That they would want to see what made them tick, and work out a few ways to break it." Jammer had a picture in his head of them turning the Number 8 tied up in the odd looking ATV, into a big lab rat. Just like he and most other students, had done in high schools back on the home. Robin also told him that they had collected the big guns and Colonial sidearm. That way they could test them, to see how they compared to their Earth made stuff. They also might want to know how well her people's body armor, would stand up to Colonial weapons. Robin thought that this might be very important to her commander. Now that they knew positively, that the cylons were using what looked like Colonial made weapon in combat. That made sense to Jammer, but he still wished they would have given him one of the pistols they found near the human forms. He knew that Eva had found three usable, but damaged battle rifles and four pistols. She also had found some body armor, that had only a few holes in it, some bigger than others. He had not been able to get that close of a look at any of it yet, but he thought that all of it had been made for the Colonial Defense Force. He wanted to get a close look at it later to make sure. He had no idea how much ammunition they were able to find, and he did not want to ask about it. But he did know that his people could use every round of ammunition, which they had found back in the New Caprica.

Jammer had to ask why they were carrying all the metal parts. That was because, it was not covered in the long note Robin had written on the device. As far as he could tell, everyone that had been at the battle site. Had loaded up with as many cylon parts, as they could carry on their backs. That is before, they all disappearing deeper into the woods like ghost out of some children's story book. It took some work, but from what he was able to find out from the two women. It was simply because they were very short refined metals, and had been that way for a very long time. They had told him that it had been one of the major limitations for them, sense they had been wrecked on this planet. The more metal they could bring back with them. The more they can trade it around for items the two scouts needed or wanted very badly. After being stuck in space for so long, he under stood about recycling everything you could and having shortages of parts. He had also picked up that some things that were not useful now, might save your life later. You had to be very careful what was recycled and not just do it blindly. It was just one of those thin lines that were all too common, in what was left of the Colonial Fleet. The refuge fleet had several factory ships, mining/smelting ships, and even the Viper production facility built into the BattleStar Pegasus. They had not had that big of a shortage of metal on the run from their home planets. But they had been very short anything that might have been made from organics for years. The shortage of refined metal, could be good bit of information to bring back to help trade grow between the two groups. That was the last real thought Jammer had for a while, as they walked deeper into the woods.

Eva was moving along her plan route as fast, but as securely as she could. They need to put as much distance between them and the battle site, as they safely could. They had to do that, and still not leave a trail to be followed by the new enemy. Each of the scouts or group of scouts, had a favorite route to make it back to the forward base. Each of the scouts were also very protective of the routes they had found and used. It was because if someone else used it, and then left signs of humans. It could turn out badly, for the next scout to take that route. The man that was accompanying the two female scouts was not use to these woods or moving in any type of forest. Much less training in moving threw them quietly, and without leaving signs of his passages. She was trying not to let it get to her, about him not being able to move like them. It was just that she was also very tired. She heard a too loud of a noise come from behind her. It was not just another trip, but this time a full fledge fall from the stranger that was walking behind her.

When Eva turned around, she saw Jammer fully face down in the mud still and not moving. She was shocked to see that he had landed on the Pulse laser rifle, they had let him use and had not taken back yet. From the way he landed on the weapon it should have gone off right in his face. It should have killed him or her, but for some reason it had not fired with the fall. Eva was very upset, that she had almost died because of this clumsy fool walking behind her. She and Robin picked Jammer up from the mud, and Eva snatched the weapon back out of his mud coved hands, viper quick. While Robin was fixing the huge mess the man had made in the trail with his fall. Eva was checked out if the priceless weapon was damaged by the fall or the man landing on top of it. It did not take her but about a minute to find out that it had not been damaged. What she did find out and it was why the weapon had no fired. It was that the removable E-Clip in the weapon was completely spent of energy.

That had been why the weapon had not fired, in the hard landing into the dirt. Jammer had been carrying a useless weapon, for hours in a combat zone. She knew that it was her fault that he had been carrying a useless weapon. She should have checked it out, when he had stopped firing back there on the defensive line. Robin had even asked her to check the weapon, and she had forgotten to do it. Maybe it was because she was tired, or being so pumped up from shooting the tin heads. As she was standing still and thinking about it. The exhaustion of the last few days of effort hit her like a runaway buss. It was time to change that before they were too tired, and made a mistake that could get one or all of them a terminal case of death.

Eva waved a hand in the air and the other woman locked eyes with her. In a low voice Eva passed along what she was thinking. "Hey Amazon. I think we might need to find a place to hold up for a few hours. I'm running low on batteries, and I think our friend over there is just plan out on his feet." She was pointing to Jammer, who had his eye closed slow swaying back and forth on his wide placed feet. "I think he is sleeping walking or about as close as you can get to it. While carrying a bunch of metal parts on your back."

Robin was finishing coving some of the last tracks marks in the dirt and mud. Then raised from her bent over position, and used the back of a muddy hand to move some strands of hair. That had fallen into her face and eyes. The tired leaked into the low voice she used. "That works for me. I've been running on Empty for the last hour or so myself." She started looking around then reached into a side pocket of her rucksack. After some looking in that side pocket, she pulled out a second electronic tablet. This one device was just for holding map data, and she stated to work out where they were. It would not be a perfect location fix. But it would be as close as she could get, with her not small set of wilderness skills to work the problem. It took a few minutes of work, but when she looked up and pointed off to one direction. She did so with extreme confidence, common of a woodland scout. "If we head over that way, we should be able to find Mats camping site in an hour or so." Mat was a scout that worked with the two women before. He had been one of the few scouts around, that shared information about past safe campsites. That did not mean that he would be there but he did tend to help out a small group of his closest friends. As long as they did not burn one of his sites, he was okay sharing.

The stop had only been for about ten minutes but it was enough to let them all catch their breath and for Jammer to come out of his funk and open his eyes. Eva pulled a long E-Clip from its protected place on front of her combat vest. She popped out the spent E-Clip from the dirty pulse rifle Jammer had been carrying, and replaced it with a fresh one. Eva made sure that she had Jammers attention, and repeated the process. She even went on to show him where to look to see if the energy clip was spent, and then how to replace it three or four times. After she handed the weapon back to him, Jammer nodded his head up and down. Then he repeated the process two or three times to show Eva that he understood what to do. He had no idea what they were talking about and his mind was still not working right. But when Robin passed him going a different direction in to the woods. Eva pointed for him to fallow the other scout, when he had not started to move on his own power again. They were moving slowly, and very carefully now. Jammer could have cared less, he just really wanted to stop. He wanted to get some sleep, now that the last of the adrenaline rush had worn off. His body was demanding that he stop and let it due what needed to be done. The lack of sleep over the day, night, and this day again. It was catching up to him fast and between that and the lack of food and water. Part of his brain knew that he was in deep trouble. He legs felt like rubber, but was also shooting fiery shots of pain up each leg. This was happing with each step he took.

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While the scouts and Major Weston were moving away from the site of the battle, with whatever they could carry as stealthy as they could. John was walking around the site of the latest failure to find out whom. Or more importantly what was killing his comrades, well comrades was a bit much. Maybe the right word was his cannon founder on this planet. This time not all the Centurions lying around him were going stay that way. While he had been flying out in a Heavy Raider, another Number One that was manning one of the Basestars reported directly to him alone. Now it would seem that the 22 cylons were in the down load queue aboard the ships overhead. They were still being possessing into new bodies. Each of the basestars overhead and in system, could theoretically have held the essence of ten cylons at any given time, which needed to down load into a new body. All without any issues or even needing extra storage space on those ships. So they had capacity for more, but again for some reason. Something was still blocking the down loading operation for most of the cylons lying in the muddy field around him.

A second wave of Centurions had made to the site that his warriors had died on. They had been using Heavy Raiders and had come down from the nearest Basestar, to get there as quick as they could. As it turned out, it did not mater. They had arrived too late to the battle site. This new group of cylons had scouted the area, had quickly found an area safe. They did find what look like the attackers might have been used as firing positions, at the other edge of the wood line. That was about ten feet from the nearest cylon body lying in the muddy field. After that they had found nothing else or at least not yet. That local area looked to have been sanitized of evidence of the attack. The cylons had only so far found the odd smears in the mud, and some heat damaged plants. They seem to have been making the wood line edge battle field. Well that and about a few thousands bullet impact marks in the mud and trees, and spent shell casings in the wreckage covered field.

Over two hundred cylons, both Centurion and human form lay in the mud around John. He ordered Centurions, which were not searching for a possible direction to travel of the attackers. That group was to try to again, close with whoever had attack his cylons. The rest of the Centurions were to start picking up the hulks of bodies, which were splayed out all over the field. He did not have anything better to do right then. So he stayed and watched the metal and meat being moved around, and soon to be loaded on the cargo carrying Heavy Raiders. As he watched he noticed that, all he really wanted to do. Was go back the human camp, and harass some of the humans. He was almost ready to take one of the Heavy Raiders, to do just that. What stopped him was that he been informed that six Heavy Raiders had just lifted off and were coming in to land on this field.

These approaching Heavy Raiders, were loaded with representatives from all of the other human form cylons. So he would have to wait for them here in the mud, instead of having some fun back at the prison camp. The message said that they wanted to see the battle site for themselves, and afterword's they would report to their own kind what decadal had happened. That did not make John very happy about that either. "They should just do what they were told." thought the Number One called John. That was when he saw something, and he mind was able to possess it as interesting. The Centurion hulk, which was being carried near him. Seem to have some different looking damage done to its chest area. This one did not have the melted bowl shape damage he had seen before. It had neat, round, and small holes bunched threw the chest, head and armored neck area of the Centurion.

John's mind went into over drive, and before the walking Centurion could move to much farther away from him. He called out to the lower level cylon. "You there, drop that thing." John had used is out loud voice, and not the radio hanging off his ear. Only the nearest Centurion could hear, and obey his command. This was more by accident, then pre plan event. John walked through the cool and sticky mud to the Centurion. He kneeled beside the war torn wreck, of what used to be one of the most feared weapons systems known to the cylon and human alike. Now that John was a lot closer, he could see that holes were punched all the way thru the metal Centurion. It did not matter where they were stuck. The holes went completely threw the metal cylon. He counted almost a dozen holes across the hunk of metal at his feet. Each one was only about a 1/3rd of inch around, but they all had blown threw the armor plated chest like it had been made of so much sundried paper. John had never seen damage quit like that done to a cylon. Now that was very odd, and John hated odd. He reached for the radio on his ear and with a slight pressure activated it. "New orders! I want all the bodies collected, but separated by damage type. Type One damage will look like it is was made by standard Colonial made weapons. Type Two will look like what we have found before today, which was not done by Colonial weapons. Type Three will look like this one's damage. Pass this updated information and images to all Centurions in this star system and the Hybrids. If something does not match these three types of damage, ask for guidance from me and me alone." He had added that last line out of a habit that he had developed over the last couple of years. Little did he know that because of that little addition? He would need to be asked over and over again, about where to put certain hulks? This was due to the varied damage patterns caused during this latest battle on this planet.

By the time the six new Heavy Raiders landed with the unwanted viewers, John had five different piles of bodies set up around the small field. The Heavy Raiders each had one different type of human form cylon carried inside the hold. And the different landing sites were spread out, across the empty parts of the small clearing/field. None of the landing craft was any closer any of the other cylon craft. That took a lot of math, but cylons were very good at doing a bucket load of math quickly. They were also about the same distance from the subject of the meeting. The Heavy Raiders did not only carry human forms, but each also had a security detail of Centurions in each of the craft. They quickly took up position around the ground craft, in case of trouble of any kind. John noticed this and made a note, to see if the command codes had been change on those machines to be loyal to only one cylon line. The group of human forms walked up to the Number One, standing in the middle of the muddy and body filled field. They were all taking mental notes from their point of view, as they walked across the wreckage filled, and now even muddier field.

"John, what are doing to these poor souls? Why have you not started sending them back up to the Basestars?" This was asked by the beautiful, long blond haired Number Six, which was wearing a Colonial Viper's pilot's outfit. It was complete, even with low holstered sidearm on her hip. The way she was moving was very fluid and graceful. But that one hand was always very near the holstered weapon, ready to pull it out of his holder in case it was needed.

John gave the women a sneer, and tilted his head to his right. "Why don't you shut up, so that I can find out what happened to our troops." John turned his back to the group of human forms. He really did not have to do that, but it was a power play move. Besides it was one that had been proven to work for him in the past. He felt like, he needed to let them know. That they really did not matter to him or to the future of the cylon race in general. When he moved between two more of the piles of battle field byproducts, he turned back to face the group snake quick. Now that he had more space between him and them. He was trying to show them. That he was in command, and in his mind we was the master of this game.

John felt like he was ready and accessed the information in his head that he wanted to give to the rest of the human forms. "I noticed a few things that were different about this attack, already while you all were on your down. That is besides the numbers involved in this large scale attack. First item of note. Is that some of the Centurions have down loaded, or will be down loading in a few hours after a detailed program review. The second item. Was that the some of the damage done to them, was different than we have found from any of the other attacks. If you look at the largest pile, you will see the same melted bowl shape damage, with internal shorting out that we have seen before." John pointed to the one pile. Then moved his arm with a great deal of flourishing to a second, but smaller pile of cylon wreckage. "Now if you look at this pile. The damage looks like someone drilled threw the bodies with a very high speed drill bit that is about 1/3rd of inch. And before you ask, yes it goes go all the way threw them." He flipped a Centurion chest onto its back, to show the thru and thru holes to the group of human forms standing around. Then he flipped the wrecked Centurion back on to its back again, as a bit of showman ship. "Now the damage pattern, and grouping is almost like a giant shotgun blast at close range but it is still armor piercing somehow." He turned again started walking to another pile a little farther way, but he did not look to see if they were fallowing him or not. It was another show of who had the real power among the cylons. When he reached the next pile of metal. He stopped, and turned again to face the group. "If you look at the damage on these, it was done by a different type of weapon. It looks like someone used an incredible sharp scalpel to cut fist sized hole in the Centurions body." He stopped talking and knelled down some and pointed to one of the odd shaped holes. "If you look closer at the hole, it gets smaller as it progress deeper into the body cavity. I would almost call the damage profile cone shaped."

John quickly rose to his feet, again turned, and walked to a shortest stack of the group. That was at the far edge of the field. This time when he turned around he waited some, before doing his little show and tell. After the group of human forms had reformed near him. He used his muddy boot covered right foot to point at the damaged chest of a Number Two, and what was left of a Centurion. "Now this damage looks like a mix of weapon damage types we have seen already. It has a melted bowl shape, but notice the cracks running away from the damage. It looks like something hit a porcelain plate hard, and it cracked. After wards it looks like somehow Greek fire was poured into the cracks causing this odd burn pattern that goes all the way inside of the torso."

He stopped talking so that he other cylons could look at what he had been talking about. While they were looking around him, he noticed that he was enjoying the feeling of power he had. After the Number Six looked at the wounds, and stood back up. John was ready again to show off what he had learned. "Before and while, I came down here. I review the last reading from all of the ones that were able to download, to see what might have caused there death. From what I can tell, any cylon hit with the melted bowl causing weapon. Like what we have been seeing on all damaged to date. This somehow interferes with all of their downloading process. The weapon that caused the burning damage, also interferes with downloading but not as bad. Right now I would call it affecting about 75% of the time in stopping the downloading procedure. Now the weapons that cause the 1/3 inch holes and the cone shaped damage causing weapons, do not interfere with our downloading technology so far as I can tell." He used the last statement to cover him, later if it proved later that he had been wrong on that subject.

John was smiling and was very happy with himself. "So whatever is going on, it is not the gods or god intervening with our operations on this planet." That should clam some of them the Frak down. John was looking right at the Number Six as he thought the last bit to himself. Too bad I have to wait to question the Number Two that had successfully down loaded. Maybe I need to see if I can develop a way to completely review their memories, before they are put into a new body. Instead of just the recovery center fixed mounted sensors. Hmmm might want to keep that idea to myself. I don't want any of them getting ideas that they should not. Now the smile John had on was not only internal, but it now matched the external one that John had.

A Number Eight was looking around area, very intently. John could not remember what she was calling herself, but he knew that he did not know her first hand. She had the look of not believing him and she was not hiding it from him. Then she looked at the other 8, which had landed with her. After some unnoticed signal between them, she then quickly snapped her head back towards John. "Okay John. So what weapon is killing our Centurions? Who is behind all of this mess? You said it's not god, giving us some kind of cosmic pay back for when we blasted the humans. You know the ones, which we would not even let them surrender. Then what is going on?" She was now the one smirking at John, who defiantly was not smiling now. "You have shot down any and all of our ideas that have been brought up. So let's hear what you have to say. That can explain what is going on, and how it is being done." The Number Eight was not tall but she had force of will, and to who she was not buying the power play being made by John. Now that she had stopped talking. She crossed her arms, tilted her head to the left. To nonverbally let him know, she was waiting for a reply to her demand. There was no way to get around that this was a question.

John hated to be put on the spot like this. It was a bit of a double standard because he dearly loved to put others on the Spot, just like the Number 8 had done to him just now. He also just happened to hated it even more. When he did not have a good answer, or any kind of answer for that matter. He sucked his lips in, and had to fight from giving her a crude comeback. He worked out that he had to be truthful, well mostly truthful in any replay he gave. "I don't know, but I'm still working on it. I will find out how the humans are doing this, and when I do. I will call for a vote to end them for the threat they are, but a lot of you will not accept that they are."

The Number Six now smiled and it was an evil smile right back at John, and joined in on the attack the Number 8 had started. "Then why don't we keep all idea on the table. That is until we find out what is going on. You look for your answers your way John and I will work from them my way." She gave him now a very sexy smile, which worked its magic on anyone with blood pumping threw their veins. "Maybe we will meet in the middle somewhere."


	14. Chapter 14 chpt 8 Moving parts

**Chapter 8 Moving parts**

While the human form cylons were checking out piles, of the now slightly used Centurion parts. On another part of this cold world, other humans were working on other projects. That would have an adverse effect on the cylons. Galen Tyrol was at the main settlement of this strange group of humans. He would still stop and stare at the massive walking cylons that the locals seemed okay to strap onto themselves. He had mentally noted almost two dozen different designs of the war-machines. Why they would have so many obvious variations of the strap on Centurion was lost on the Colonial? After one of those machines would pass him, he could get his legs moving again for a few seconds. He would have to shake his head in wonderment at the spectacle. These people were an odd mix of very high tech in the war fighting department, but kind of low tech in the housing area that he had seen so far.

When they had told him that they were shipwrecked on the planet, he and the refugee leadership, had thought they had meant that they had crash landed on the planet. Then he had seen the two large ocean going ships. They had been tied up to what looked like a local material made dock, and sticking out in to the protected bay. Seeing those two ships, had forced him to change his mind. It was like he was living a bad entertainment show. The one thing that he did know. Was that there was no way. That those ancient looking water bound ships sailed the black between the stars. They really were only ocean traveling vessels, and not space ships. He was still working on understanding the story on how they were able get to his planet hidden in a nebula way past the edge of explored space. He was hoping that he was misunderstanding something, or he had lost way too many brain cells over the last year.

How could people who could come up with, and fielded hand held direct energy weapons technologies? Not have developed the ability to move between the stars? It was just too strange, and he was having a big problem getting his head wrapped around the idea as well. Tyrol had to stop that line of thought, as another battle suit walked by him. This one seem to have a human bone like design on its hard outer covering. When it had left his line of site, he checked his old watch and picked up his walking pace.

Tyrol was heading to a meeting on the smaller of the two large water bound ships tied to the wooden dock. He was still "on land" as he walked down the wooden dock. Tyrol was studying the design of the dock/pier, and quickly worked out that it was an amazing bit of work. It had taken a lot thought, to both make the jetty/dock but also to camouflage it as well. It was no wonder that they had not been seen by any over flying craft, when the Colonial craft had flown by or over the area. He doubted that even if one of the Battlestars had orbited over, that it would have been noticed by her on duty crews. These strangers had transplanted huge trees from the land, into massive grow boxes on each side of the dock. And they were still taking care of those trees, to keep them healthy and growing. They had placed them so close together, and had taken such good care of the trees. The overhead branches were now interlocked overhead. It was like walking under a solid green ceiling. On top of the cover provided by the trees. They had put up some kind of netting, they must have made them invisible from above. In fact whatever these people were covering ships with. Tyrol had bet that it also made them invisible, from the sea and ground level at any angle beyond 100 feet. These people took hid and go seek, to a whole new level, one that the Colonial Military should have done.

As he was walking down the wood covered dock about thirty or forty feet. He could see kids playing on the tan hard wood that was the top part of the dock. He could see other kids with wood sticks hanging out over the water with thin lines running to the water. He had no idea what they were doing, because he had been raised in the city or in space. He had spent very little time during his whole life under anything but artificial lights. When one of the wood sticks bent over, until it almost looked like a C. Tyrol stopped to watch what was going on in front of him. Soon all of the eight or nine year old kids that had been sitting on the edge of the wood top dock. Stood up, and started shouting in there strange tongue, to each other. Galen stopped and was watching closely, what they were doing. Not knowing if this was an emergency or not, and it seemed like the right thing to do. After much hand waving, and shouts two of the kids started to help the third kid. The trio pull in a thin line of some kind, by using a second, but smaller wood stick to wrap the line one loop at a time. In a few more minutes of sweaty and straining, a fish like animal broke the waters dark surface, and rose slowly into the air. Now all of the kids on the dock, were focused on the trio of fish catchers. All of them were adding to the volume of voice celebrating the successful catch.

Galen was smiling, he had his first real egg, in what seem like a decade of years a few hours ago. He had thought it was strange that they served it with fried fish. It seemed like every meal he had eaten over the last few days, had fish of some kind in it. Now he knew why that was. They just did not have anything else to fill the needed amount of protein, and they did not seem to know about algae vat protein. He really did not mind about the last part. That was because not matter how much he did not like fish before the cylons had put them on the run from their home planets. It was a lot better tasting than algae protein, they had been living on while on the run from the cylons. It had been that or starve to death.

Tyrol again started walking again towards the knife sharp bows of the ships. After he had watching the kids get the fish on the dock, and had started to clean the guts out for cooking. He been assumed, watching them work on that one fish like animal. Some of the parts coming out of the fish's guts, were being passed out to other fishing kids. Hooks were being outfitted with the still warm fish parts, and soon they too were in the water as bait. Not all of the insides were begin put on sharp bits of metal or bone. Some was going to a small cup, maybe for later use. When the Colonial had noticed the pole in the water, there had been maybe four of five of them. Now there almost a dozen different lines in the grey water. Tyrol was betting, that nothing was going to go to waste of the fish like animal, the little on had brought up out of the water.

"Well some family is going to have a little bigger meal tonight, than they had thought they would. When the sun came up this morning." These were the thoughts the Colonial had, as he walked past the still excited group of kids. Tyrol was being careful not to slip on the slimy slick wood surface under his boots, as he finished passing the kids with poles. He had no idea what else might be in the water near the dock. Tyrol had noticed, that the fish had some sharp looking teeth filling its mouth. They looked like they could have cut a man's finger off, if it had wanted to. Or if that finger was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Like say, if it was in the water with the swimming little beast in that dark and cold water. He shook his head and absentmindedly reached into his inner coat pocket, and pulled out the metal flask that was hiding with in the folds of his outer coat.

He was almost out of the rot gut, but he had already noticed some of the locals drinking a strong smelling substance that fill his needs. Galen did not think it would be that hard, to find something to refill his little metal flask. He just did not want to rush in just yet, to top it off his container. It would cost, and right now he did not know what a fair price was. For something to wet his throat and warm his belly. When he put the flask back into its little pocket without opening it, he decided that maybe he might want to save it for dinner, or even for later tonight. When he looked up from putting the odd shaped container away. Tyrol noticed that Dexter was standing at the end of a set of metal stair, which went from the wooden dock to the smaller of the two ship's main deck. He seemed to have been waiting on Galen to arrive.

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Dexter wave to the other man down the dock from him. He had been waiting for the stranger to show up for quite some time now. In fact he was about to leave the ship's gang way, and start walking up the dock to look for the wayward Man. When Dexter finally saw him heading down the dock on slightly unsteady feet, he was both relieved and concerned at the same time. Then he saw the stranger stop and watch some of the kids as they brought up a fish out of the cold water. "Well the Captain is not going to like that, if he keeps that up." Thought went thru Dexter's mind very quickly, but it did not play out on his face as the stranger closed the distance to him. The Captain Kelly was an understanding person even up to very understanding, for a ship's Captain. But you did not want to cross him, and showing up for a meeting drunk. Well that was one of the fastest ways, to cross him that Dexter knew off of the top of his head. Dexter started to mumble under his breath. "I better check on him, before we start the meeting. If he's not good to go, I will see if I can soften the blow that might fall on the Refugee." Dexter started to work on a few excuses in his head. He was thinking that he might need to use one of them to postpone the meeting. None of them were good, but they might be just good enough.

Dexter stepped in closer to the Colonial and stuck out his hand. Dexter was all in what most people would call "personal space", he was that close to the Colonial. He was doing his best to both look friendly, but still be blocking the access to the ship's gang plank at the same time. "Looks like you made it to the right place, I was about to go check on you. Did you get lost on the way down from the gates?" Dexter was trying to keep it light and friendly.

Galen had met Dexter before, so he did not know how to take the comment. He could feel some of the undertones in what he was saying and the body language, but he did not know why they might be there. "No, I just wanted to look around a little, while I had the time and the sun was up. I'm not late am I?" They were speaking in what the locals called English, but it was done very slowly and with small words. The better that they all could understand each other. As luck would have it. It had turned out that Galen Tyrol. Had a special gift for picking up languages that he, nor the Colonial Military had not known about. That is until he had been immersed into a new culture and a completely new language, the skill had bubbled up for him to leverage.

"Okay so he is not slurring his words" thought Dexter. "But he still smells… odd. It does not smell like he has been drinking lately, but he has been hitting the bottle hard sometime in the near past." Dexter knew the smell of a drunk, he had been one himself, and with a slight nod of his head he address the Colonial. "No you're not late yet, but the old man does not like it when people are late. He really does not like it, and the other two members of the Triumvirate? Well they are almost as nuts about it as he is." Dexter reached into an outer coat pocket, and pulled out a little refillable hard plastic bottle to show the clear liquid, but not labeled container to the other man. The hand with the bottle did not come higher than his mid-chest. "I also would take it easy on this stuff, before any meeting with them. They understand a person being under a lot of stress, and needing a little something to keep a person going on this cold and damp ass planet. But take my word for it. You don't want to show up carrying a load on, or even smelling like you might still be recovering from getting loaded. If you show up unsteady on your feet. Or if someone sees you take a little hit, before you talk to them." Dexter stopped talking for a second, and was shaking his head side to side very slowly. He was remembering a similar incident that had him as the central player. "They will come down on you like a stone wall; trust me on this. You don't want that to happen you." Dexter stopped talking and let his words sink in some before he finished talking. He just hope that this guy would listen to the warning. "I know firsthand, and I would not wish that on my worst enemy." Dexter gave a little shutter and a drop of sweat beaded up on his forehead. "You're not one of us, but trust me. These men can let you know, that they are not happy with you. They will take, one strip of flesh off at a time with the tongue lashing they can manage. It can make a man fell very small while they are doing it."

Tyrol was about to become very defensive, and set his shoulders ready to defend himself. He was not in a diminished capacity, by any measure. Even after hitting the little bottle a few times, since the sun rose on this cold planet. After all they had only been small sips of the high proof and very flammable liquid. It took him a minute, but then the thought about it before opening his mouth, and making it any worse. What if he was about to report to Admiral Adama? The XO had been doing that for years, granted. But Galen Tyrol was not Colonel Saul Tigh, and with the years of knowing and working with the Old Man under his belt. He felt cold water run down his spine, and he had to fight not to let it show on his face. Tyrol finally relaxed his shoulders, and just gave the other man a nod. This let Earther know that he had understood, and had taken the words of advice to heart.

Dexter was watching the other man, and he could see the wheels were turning in his head. He would later swear that the other man had given a little shake or shutter. Before he moved his head in an up and down motion, and then stepped to the boarding ramp. Dexter fallowed a few steps behind the other man. He was evaluating him every step of the way up the steep metal ramp. The Colonial was walking straighter, as he went up the angled stairs. When they reached the top step the Colonial stepped off to one side of the entry gate. So that Dexter could lead him the rest of the way to the meeting location. The only thing that slowed them down going to the assigned meeting room. Was when Tyrol stopped to get a cup of hot caffeine, to give him a kick in the mind as well as his body. Dexter and Tyrol entered the designated room each holding hot cups of caffeine, but it was empty of people. Around the table were six thin computers, laid out around the table at each of the chairs. Near each screen was a name plate, to note who would sit were. Dexter and Tyrol sat in here assigned seats that happened to be next to each other, on one side of the wood topped briefing table or desk. The room was quiet with only the sound of moving air threw vents and breathing. The Colonial looked to find something to occupy his mind. While they waited for the local powers that be to show up to a meeting they had scheduled.

With nothing to do, Tyrol started reading the text on the screen as they waited for the rest of the people to arrive. It seemed like it would be a good use of time, and keep his mind working on other things besides worry about this high level meeting. The text was in two columns on the one super thin screen. One side was in English and the other side was in Caprican on the screen. He was on the second page of questions when he had to stop reading. That was when Dexter started to rise as a second door had opened into the room. It was not the same door that Tyrol and Dexter had used to enter the room. Tyrol knew the military protocol, and rose from his chair also. Three men entered the room, one after the other without saying a word. Tyrol had been told who they were, when he was told about the meeting. He had even been show pictures with each of the three men named. So he knew that he was meeting with the top leadership of this lost branch of humanity, and it was not a low level meeting. They each took a seat and looked at the stranger waiting. Tyrol could feel the sweat to start beading up on his forehand and also run down his back.

The main captain and center seated of the three, looked at the two men each in turn. Tyrol had a feeling he was looking at the Admiral Adama equivalent of this group. The center seated man reached down, and started to read the screen in front of him. When leader started to type on the screen, without speaking to Dexter or Tyrol. Tyrol about jump out of his skin, when the screen in front of him changed right before his eyes. He knew his eyes went huge, and he was having to physically hold himself in the wooden but comfortable chair. They had networked computers! With cylons around! "What were they Fraking crazy? Don't they know what kind of trouble could that cause them?" Thought the Colonial, but he did not say anything out loud. He just type the answer to the requested information that had been sent to his device by one of the three leaders via a wireless connection. This was not the last question as the three leaders read there little display screens.

Tyrol had a good idea of who some of the questions were coming from, just by who had stopped typing on the screen and the new message showing up on his screen. Not surprising, all the questions were about the combat capacities he might know about. They wanted to know if cylons could track radio signals. After some time of going back and forth. They had to table the question for later, that was because Galen had no idea what the frak radio was? He was trying to explain that the Centurions could not track DRADIS that well. After that statement he had found out that they had no idea what a DRADIS system was, or how it worked in the first place. After some back tracking, Tyrol explained that only the Heavy Raiders and Basestars. Were known to have the real ability to backtrack Colonial DRADIS signals. He went into some detail about what a Battlestar and a Basestar was. As well as, what they were and the differences between the two ships designs. He only told them about the capabilities that any civilians of the Colonies, would know about the main class of ship called a Battlestar. He did not go into any detail about the different types of Colonial Battlestar. He did not want to let these strangers know too much about the capabilities of the Battlestars. Just in case things did not work out between Colonials and them. If the Admiral gave all the good bits away latter? Well that was way above his pay grade. He only wanted to give a base outline of data on this first meeting. Now it was a totally different story, when he was telling them about the combat capabilities of the different types of cylon Basestars he knew about. He had been briefed about them over his long years of military service, and all of those "know the enemy classes" were coming in handy today. He gave everything up, he could about the cylons. He did made sure to tell them over and over again. That he was only a deck knuckle dragger or mechanic, and could only pass along what he had remember from briefing and what other people had said. He did not want them to take everything he said as being perfect and from the mouth of the Gods. If he turned out to be wrong about something, he did not want it to blow back on him somehow. He had been told by Roslin not to lie to them if he could get away with it. Misunderstandings were okay, but outright lies could blast any friendships the frak up. The meeting was into its second hour when someone knocked on the door, that Dexter and Tyrol had entered the room threw. All sets of eyes flew to the knocking sound on the hatch, and stayed there until someone walked through it.

Captain Kelly was not happy about being disturbed, when the communication duty person entered the room and passed him a hand written note. He had to read it twice, before he could believe what was printed on the little off- white sheet of paper. He looked around the room with a wide smile on his face, which would have done any of the different types of shark proud to have been able to make. Tyrol started to sweat again, and he had to fight the shakes in his hands. This commander acting just like Adama, and something was up. If Tyrol was a betting man, he would say it was something very big or important had happened or was about to happen.

Kelly looked around the table letting his teeth show to the others. "Major Weston was able to set up a surprise attack on a group of cylons the other day. He thinks the number of cylons attacking was over 200 ground units, and fell right into his cigar shaped ambush. He also reports that he dropped two of the small type flying craft, with only a few light wounds between all of his people involved in the ambush. They only had one crew served weapons in a small group of scouts that he was able to gather in time to set up the attack. That was all they needed to stop the attack dead in its tracks." He made sure to talk slowly, so that Tyrol could fallow along. While he was talking, Captain Kelly passed the note around the table so everyone could see it. "They were even able to pick up some salvage, not a lot, but some before having to bugging out of the area. The plan is for them to make it back to the main support base in small groups. This is hoped to make it harder for anyone to fallow his people back to the support base. They also were able to capture a Type Brunette or a Number Eight cylon alive, if a bit bruised. They want to send her back as soon as they can for in-depth questioning. Major Weston wants to handle some of what he calls "tactical questioning" before sending it farther down his supply line. He reports no heavy weapons were used in the whole of the engagement, so far." Captain Kelly stopped talking and eye locked like a Viper on a Raider with the sitting Colonial. "Mr. Tyrol we need some way to contact the space ships, we know fled when those cylon Basestars showed up. I don't think that your Admiral is going to just leave this system, and not have a plan to get back. He will feel that he needs to save, what he thinks is the last or at least the largest group of humans left alive. I want to be able to somehow talk to him, and let him know that he is not the lone defender of his people anymore. If we can convince him that we are friends, then maybe we can work together somehow. To do that, we need you to build us a way to communicate with him and any other ships that might be out there. Can you do it? And will you do it for us?" Captain Kelly stopped talking, and a person listening on the built in microphone was busy type out what he had said and pushed the text to all of the computers in the meeting room.

Tyrol was looking around the table and checked the thin computer screen. The last part was to buy some time for him to think about what had just been said. Was this all some kind of game? He had stopped himself from grabbing the little bottle in his jacket coat, twice now in less than five minutes. He was almost sure, that the one of the leaders had seen him reach for it but had not said anything…. yet. "So you're going to help us defeat the cylons?" The thought had been rattling around in his head since they had asked him to hide under that truck. Maybe it was the alcohol or the lack of it, which caused his brain to mouth filter to shut down for a split second. Tyrol was embarrassed, but now that the thought was now out in the open and the whole room had heard it. It was now waiting to be answered, by the leadership of this section of the human race. That the Colonials had never known existed until less than a week ago.

The man called Captain Kelly looked at the weary Colonial across the table from him. Kelly watched him for a few long seconds, then he started typing on the little screen in front of him. Kelly did not want something to get lost in translation, so that the other man would know exactly what he was saying. "Mr. Tyrol were we come from, they say that every story has three sides. Your side, their side, and the truth." Kelly held up his hand to stop the other man from speaking. "I don't doubt that you believe what you told us. But we need to check it out, before we bleed too much for you. It would not be the first time or even the ten time, which I have heard of a ploy like this. I must protect my people from all who might threating them." The message was displayed on all of the computer screens in the room and a few more besides.

Tyrol was thinking as fast as he could, but still looking at the screen. It gave him some time to think about what he wanted to say or should not say. He was still smarting from the last comment and he did not want to say the wrong thing again. He did not want to tell them that the underground had a communication device hidden in a deep tunnel under a few homes. They want to contact Adama, when he came back or sent someone back to contact them. He came up with a very shaky middle ground that would give him an out and still protect his people. "If you have the right spare parts. I should be able to come up with something that should work. I don't know, and can't guarantee if anyone will be out there to talk to. If there is someone out there? It will be up to you to convince the Admiral to talk to you. He will not be very trusting to strangers, that he cannot see face to face, and even that is not a given. You might need to have someone back in New Caprica help out. How? I have no idea. All I am willing to do, is try to build you a device."

The youngest of the three men on the other side of the table from the Colonial, Max, smiled a friendly smile. Max, again was amazed that the two ship's commanders had war-gamed out almost exactly what this man had said two hours ago. Now it was Max's turn to play his part in this little show. "Good! That is about all we can ask for, Mr. Tyrol. Dexter why don't you take Mr. Tyrol to the electronics shop, and see what he can do. If you can help him out in any way, it would be appreciated." Max looked around the table, and received nodes from both of the other men on his side of the table. "Gentlemen, I think we need to let these two go about their business." A second round of heads moving up and down went down one side of the table.

The three leaders of the Settlement on Safe Port Bay rose as if they were one being, and exited the room. The Trio went through the same door they had entered in without another word. Dexter had risen also, and was using his arm to point to the second door on the other side of the room. Dexter led the other man threw the metal hallways of the ship and down several metal stairs or ladders. Internally, Tyrol was comparing the layout of this ship to other ships he had been on during his long military career. Some of the layout made since to him, but most of it was just too strange for him to get a frame of reference on. They were almost half way down into the ship, closing rapidly on the ships bottom. When they entered the engineering spaces that supported the converted ship. It was almost like a home coming, when they swung open the water proof hatch and entered electronics repair room. It was only about fifteen feet long but run over forty feet across, which was the entire width of the ship at this level. It was almost as large as the dedicated Viper electronic repair area, Tyrol had access to back on the Old Bucket. It was not as large as the Viper repair bays on the Battlestar Pegasus. Tyrol was happy to have been able to work out what this shop was used for without being told, but he also was a little disappointed. He would have expected the area to be a lot bigger, if it was supposed to be the only electronics support shop. For a warship this size, Tyrol expected the shop to be scaled down, but that this much. On Colonial warships, support and repair areas took up between 25 and 30 percent of the total warships volume. The repair shop did not even come close to that number.

Tyrol was in his element and the space was close enough to his second home, that he quickly was able to focus on the job. The first item on "the to-do" list, was for Tyrol to figure out. What was this Radio thing was? And how did it worked in both theory and the practical worlds. That was done by the simple fact of using three short ranged hand held device, that happened to be in the shop but not being used. It only took about two hours, using those three devices, and the translation computer for Tyrol to work those two problems out to his satisfaction. Tyrol was so into his job that he had forgotten about taking time off for a nice hot lunch in the ships dining hall. He was so into the work in fact. That he did not even notice when Dexter, and two of the crewmember left shop to get some food. He even forgot about the little bottle in his coat pocket. That same said outer coat and a lighter inner one, were draped over a working chair. He had a habit of doing that, in a time before landing on New Caprica. Tyrol was reading a user and repair manual, and taking apart a hand held radio. When Dexter sat a plate of fired fish, and cut up slices of fruit on the open pages of the thick book. When Tyrol jerked his head up, to look at who had dropped the plate in front of his face. Dexter pointed to the fresh food, and said one word "Eat". Then Dexter crossed his arms, and waited to the Colonial to relent, and put hot food in his stomach. Dexter was taking the baby sitting job very seriously.

Tyrol could not identify the type of fish that was on his plate, but it was protein, hot, fried, and about two pounds of it. That was good enough for him after spending about ten seconds looking at it, and letting his mind classify it. The fresh fruit on his plate would have been a very special treat with his people. Or it would had cost him more credits, than all the deck hands on the Galactica could have come up with in a year. For the first time in a long time Tyrol did not know what to eat first. Tyrol had a sad smile on his face and with a slight head shake. "Well the only thing missing. Is a nice glass of 15 year old Ambrosia, and a beautiful woman sitting across the table from me?" Tyrol thought he had only said those words in his head, but he had not. He had set it soft enough that it might have escaped notice from most people. It had not, escaped notice today.

Dexter looked at Tyrol, and waved a hand to get the Tyrol's' attention. It was only after he was sure he had made eye contact. "What is Ambrosia? Is it some kind of drink?" Dexter did a little hand jester like he was taking a ship from his flask, and raised one eye brow. Now that they were not dealing with the Captain Kelly and friends, he felt it was safe to bring something like that up.

Tyrol smiled, and was thinking, now maybe it was the right time to trade for some information. He started to speak slowly but he was ready to grab the little nearby computer to help in out. If he needed it. "I have some with me. It not 10 years old, or even good stuff. But you have to tell something about this warship. If you would like to try some of what I have?" He point to the deck above him, so that the other man knew he was talking about this ship. The three leaders had picked his brain, now it was his turn to find out about a few things.

Dexter gave a side smile to the Colonial sitting down. He was not dumb, but he could play the part really good. In fact he could play the part very well, when he wanted to. Captain Kelly had already given him a list of items not to talk about, if he was asked about. It was a long list, but Dexter just took it as he needed to stay away from certain categories. "I might be able to, but I don't know that much about her military capabilities. I'm just an ex-gun bunny that was just very lucky and found a few nice mines that I can live off of the profits from."

"That's find. I don't want to know any big secret, anyway. It's just that I would expect a warship this size. To have more cubage dedicated for combat repairs and even general maintenance." Galen leaned back in his chair, and took another large bite of his fish before it got any colder. He might as well do two things at once, while he could.

Dexter gave the other man an odd look, and he did not say anything for a few long seconds. That question had not been on his metal list of questions, he thought he would be asked. He knew that the Neptune's Revenge had the largest workshops of the two Earth ships that made it to the new planet. Dexter relented and answered the question. "The Neptune's Revenge, has the largest and best equipped repair shops that made it with us to this planet." After he said that out loud, something clicked in his mind. Until the Colonial had asked, he had never spent that much time thinking about it. "She was not a bottom up warship, when she was built. We think that she was a military transport and cargo ship when her life started. She was only armed for a little self-protection, or to scare a pirate or two enough to leave her alone. Now she only carries small high value cargos, and rents out as a convoy escort. That was only after a lot of modification over the years by the Captain's family. She has even done some pirate/monster hunting on the side. Only when the pay was good enough to make it worthwhile. She was never considered a full-fledged warship were we come from, as far as I know. She is only listed, as a very powerful escort to merchant ships or low threat, local problem solver." Dexter was watching the Colonial closely as he spoke.

Tyrol was stunned by what the other man had said. He had seen the weapons mounts on the ship, and they were massive in both size and numbers. What had happened to their home world where they would need a combat ship, so bad? That they would arm up a thin skinned transport to his magnitude? Putting weapons and armor plate on civilian ships, was not uncommon for the 12 Colonies. Even a couple ships of the Rag Tag Fleet had some weapons mounted on them. They were normally only pop guns. But were supposed to keep something a little bigger than Raptor sized pirates away, or some anti-fighter /anti-missile weapons. It was very odd to have a ship armed, well enough to counter any size of real Warcraft.

Now it made since about the small size of the support rooms on the ship. Just like the civilian ships that had escaped the cylon attack. They all had smaller support rooms, than a regular warship would have. That was true of even the valuable manufacturing ships in the convoy. With the question answered. Galen started going into extreme detail telling Dexter what Ambrosia was, and how it was made. He covered that process for both before and after the cylons latest attacks. It was when Dexter was taking a small sip of the rot gut. That Tyrol was reviewing what Dexter had said the name of the ship they were on was called. There was something about the name that was bugging him, then he was distracted by the face that Dexter made after the rotgut his tongue. Tyrol made a note to see what this "moonshine" was when he had a chance.

After getting back to work, Tyrol was still doing two things at once. He had heard of the name Neptune before. He could not get his alcohol socked brain to work and remember where he had heard that name before, but he knew it was in there somewhere. He just knew it was, and some part of his damaged brain knew it was important. By the end of the day, he had built a way to transmit a message off this planet, and that might be picked up by the Admiral. That is if he or one of his crewmembers were out there to receive the message in this system. He had to build a second device, so that he could make sure that one of them worked. The shop he was working in was surprisingly very well stocked with parts, which Tyrol could access and easily modified to fit his needs. His test on the devices were done at very lowest possible power setting. It was hopped that the low power setting would make it, so that the cylons could not pick up on the test carrier wave. Tyrol knew that the two watt power test should carry no farther than five or six feet in the open air.

While the sun was setting Tyrol was working on a very bulky, very short ranged, and very low resolution DRAIDS system. He had no way of coming up with all of the software that was needed to operate it, at anything close a military level. It was better than a high school built model, but not by that much. He had decided midway through building the communication device. To go ahead and built the thing. That way he could have the hardware already put together, and waiting when he had the time to try to write some software code. Tyrol was moving with purpose that he had not felt since, the attack that killed everyone he knew so many months ago.

Tyrol only stopped working on the project when his stomach let him know it was time to eat again. He walk up a few deck levels to eat in the ships mess hall for an evening, and finial hot meal of the day. He just fallowed along in line with all of the other crewmembers. As they made their way down a serving line, with food laid out on long glass covered tables. He had no idea what most of food was. He would look around, and he would pick a few things and put them on his green plastic tray. After seeing more than one person smell the offered food before they put it on their trays. He started to do the same with the items. Smelling did not help him identify the food items any better, but "when on Caprica be like a Caprican", and try to blend in with them.

Dexter was fallowing behind the Colonial in the food line, just in case there were any issues. That turned out to be a good thing, when a white haired man at the end of the serving line with a computer of some kind. Started to seem like he was about to have a heart attack or stroke, because Tyrol was getting food from "his" line. Tyrol had no idea what the other man was saying, because it was not in any of the two languages that he now spoke. Dexter step forward, and spoke to the white haired man and in English. Dexter told him that Tyrol was a guest of The Captain, and he was working in one of the machine shops on the captains orders. This placated the white haired gatekeeper enough, and Tyrol and Dexter were allowed to continue on to an open table in the larger of the two eating rooms. The open small table, was along one of the metal walls. It was not a bad place to eat the bounty on their plates, and trays in some bit of peace if not quite.

At first the noise from the different voices of the room, was too much for Tyrol to understand what Dexter was trying to talk to him about. After a few tries Dexter went back to the old standby of using the little touch screen. Now they could talk back in forth by passing typed messages as they eat their hot meal. Both people were able to learn a good bit about the other while they ate and chatted on the device. Dexter had to excuse himself to go to the ships head, towards the end of the meal. After explain what a ship's head was to Tyrol. Dexter messaged him that he would wait for him at this table. Dexter's absents gave Tyrol time to study more closely, the two huge paintings on two of the four metals walls, that made up the seated dining area. The first one was a painting of a massive wave of blue, green, and white water coming ashore on a sand and bolder covered beach. As the water rose above the rest of the sea, the top crest of the massive wave slow turned from water into a long line of white stallions at the full run. Behind the water/horse wave, was an old man with long flowing white hair. He was holding a trident in his right hand, and with this left hand, it look like he was commanding the waters to assault the shore. All on his command, and not the will of nature. It was an impressive painting, and whoever had done it had both some painting skills and talent. As well as a lot of free time on their hands to do the massive high detailed painting.

The second massive painting, was on the wall that was also the exit side out of the metal room. Tyrol had not seen the painting when they had entered the room at first. That was because as he had entered the room, and the massive painting had been behind him. He only noticed it, after he had taken a seat and saw the first painting. He then looked around the room to see what else might be there to draw the eyes of those eating in the facility.

The painting looked a lot like a painting Tyrol had seen before. It was not as much alike as he would have liked, but he knew the image painted on the wall ten feet tall and maybe twenty feet wide. It was the same image that was on the back of the Colonial 100 cubit credit bill. It was not an exact match but it was close, so close Galen's head started to hurt as he looked at the painting. It was of a set of four huge white horses pulling a chariot made of one very massive sea shell, and various smaller sea shells. The man in the chariot was a very fit man with long white hair, and a trident raised above his head. It looked like he was ready to strike with the golden three forked weapon onto something out of the main scene of the painting. On the head giant, was a massive gold crown that looked like a massive house with jewels at all of the points and windows. On the two sides of the shell chariot, were a pair half human and half fish bodies acting as escorts or guards. They were perfect looking nude human upper bodies, and were paired male and female. Behind the chariot, was a strange monster. It looked to be having fun in the water, and playing a shell horn of some kind at the same time. If Tyrol had been home. He would have called it a Centaur. But then again, the man in the shell chariot would have been called Poseidon and not Neptune. He knew the name was different, because it was printed on the top of the painting. In huge block letters in blue and black, that said the painting was called Neptune's Chariot. Tyrol knew the painting as Poseidon's Charge. Little bits of sweat started to form on Tyrol's head again and the ach started up behind his eyes.

When Dexter returned from making room for his dinner. And had just returned to his four point of contact to the chair. When Tyrol asked about what, and who this Neptune person might be. Dexter was not an expert in history, but he knew were to go to get some of the information the Colonial was asking for. He gave the man as much as he knew about Neptune, after all. You could not be on this ship, and not know something about her history, and why she carried that particular name. Dexter told him that he would find out more information, and get it to him as so as he could.

When Dexter dropped the Colonial back at the shop, to go back working on whatever it was that the Colonial was doing. Dexter went to barrow a digital book from the XO of the Revenge. As the night closed in on the Settlement of lost humans, the electronics shop on the Neptune's Revenge was still very busy. What the lone Colonial did not know, was that one member of the repairs shop crew, was making detailed notes on what he was doing. Then she was passing those updates to the Triumvirate, and the ship's XO. Tyrol would wind up sleeping in the repair room, when he was just too tired to work any longer. The rest of the shop still went about their required work keeping everything running as best they could. One person only stopping, to put a thin blanket over the slumped shoulders of Galen Tyrol. It was just like old times, when he was too tired to work. Tyrol would just find a clear area to lie down on, or prop his feet up on back on his Battlestar. The sounds of the workshop were like a good lullaby, to the old mechanic, and within seconds he was snoring. For the first time in over a year the dreams did not come back to haunt him that night. He just dreamed of all the things, he wanted to make with his hands. And the opportunity to make them, that seem to be offered to him and his people.


	15. Chapter 15 Chapter 9 Shocking News

**Chapter 9 Shocking News**

 **New Caprica, 677 Days after the Fall of the Colonies**

 **3 years 2 month 07 days AT**

Major Weston was sleeping soundly in his cot, but that was not going to last much longer. Just like it had been almost every day since the first big battle with the cylons. He had too little time to do all that needed to get done. He was the only one who was approved or that could sign the trading chits for recharging E-clips credit in the camp. That meant, that as a scout or groups would come into the camp from the ambush site. He would have to assess the value of salvage, then issue the trade chits. This should have been very straight forward task as it had been explained to him, when he took on the additional duty. It was not, every one of the people that like to do this type of work, always wanted to haggle about the worth of something. It did not matter, if they were buying or selling. They haggled on the value of things, for what Major Weston considered from an obscene to very obscene amount of time.

It seem that it was always about how many chits the fighters should get, for whatever, it was that they wanted to trade in. A task that should have only taken five minutes, quickly turned into an hour or so. And it the group had been, say three or four scouts working together? Then it could be a few hours of an ordeal for the Major to work his way through. So far the worst of the lot, not been from one of the larger groups. It had been two scouts and some friends, who had collected one of the big handheld tin head support class weapons. They had even been able to pick up about 100 rounds of unspent ammunition for it, and what looked to be a few dozen empty casing. That was before they pulled out of the battle site, and started their long walk back to the base. The overly smart pair had set the weapon up at the little range, and fired a few short burst out of it. That was even before sending for him to start the trading process, which was very smart on their part. Someone must have let slip that Weston already had two of these type weapons, that other scouts had brought back to him. But they had not worked when Weston had ordered them tested. The pair of large weapons were still useful in many ways, but not in every way that they were needed to be.

With the pair having all of this valuable information, was very important to them. Now they knew, what had been offered and paid for those two non-operational weapons. This group had been freelance scouts from before the trip to this planet, so they could ask for anything. And they did, just that. Weston would have given ten chits each for five recharged long E-clips per person in the group. If they had been drawing pay from the Settlement. He could have offered less than that, but they had not been. Weston wanted that weapon badly, and they knew it, so he had to pay for it. And he would have to pay dearly for it.

It was around midnight local time they had settled for an IOU for a weapon that was "like" it. It would be an energy based out of stocks, from one of the ship's cargo hold. The IOU would be given to the supply shop back at the Settlement, to draw a weapon like the one they were trading in to him. Weston did not like writing those things up, and did not offer them up lightly or very often. That was because if someone was unhappy with what the supply person had given them. Then it would give the holders of IOU, an opportunity to raise the request to higher authority. That would mean that they could take the IOU all the way to the Triumvirate for them to settle the debt, it they felt the need. It was a very complicated operation to use the IOUs.

Weston was able to talk the team of scouts down to only getting two of the five Long E-Clip recharge chits' markers each person. That was going to cover him taking the ammunition and other scrap metal off of their hands. That was not that much of a consolation prize, and it had taken too long to get to that point of agreement. After filling out the paper work, he had walked to his sleeping area. He noted in his log, that he still needed to talk to the captured cylon. That is, when he finial could get the time freed up to do that. He know that if he did not do it soon, he would have to send her (?) back down the supply line and someone else would have to do it. That meant that whatever was learned would take a long time to get to him and his shooters.

Major Weston had to set his internal alarm clock, so that he could get a few hours of much needed sleep. Then he would have to relieve the current guard on the POW, and start that task of questioning the cylon. As he was pulling a thick cover over his body, he started thinking he was getting to old, for days that lasted this long. "A person my age needs to get some beauty sleep, or I will end up scaring the paint off the hood of my truck on day." This thought when threw the Majors head, just before his brain shut down and he was able to get back to sleep.

Major Weston was not happy when the buzzing started in his head way to soon, after his head had hit the thin pillow under his head. To him it sound like a low flying SAMAS suit, with its engines on overdrive. Weston was just lucky that it was only in his head, and not audible to the outside world. After quickly access the device built into his skull, to find out why it was going off so bloody early and turn the blasted thing off. After reading the note he had put down for the reason of the alarm. That brought him to full awake, very quickly. After all it was not every day that you got to question a captured female cybernetic alien. That was not a normal every day event, not even for someone born and raised on post Rifts Earth.

Major Weston grabbed some clean cloths out of his duffle bag, and went to the shower point. In his experience, if you went to an interrogation smelling heavily of sweat and mud. You had already lost a lot of the intimidation factors you needed, to get what you needed to know out of a prisoner. That is if you wanted to avoid breaking bones on the first meeting. He even was able to take the time to get some hot food to eat, before he walked into the tent at one end of the small camp. This tent was what they were using for special Cell to hold the cylon POW. The POW was under lock and key, as well as under three person guard detail at all times.

As Major Weston closed in on the tent, he went over the specification of the detention facility. It was not much of a cell, as a confinement device might be called. It was just a damage resident fabric outer covering, with a rough cut wooded floor to keep you boots out of the muck. What was not visible to the eye, was that the fabric that was along the walls and ceiling also was there under foot. The material was thin, but would have been impossible to tearing through, without a lot help. Even with the cylon's increased strength and a sword, they could not have cut or torn the fabric that made this tent. Even the center pole of the tent was made of super strong metal, and had come when the tent was unpacked the first time. It had taken a written order from the settlements leadership for that item not to have been recycled months ago.

Near the tall center pole of tent, was a standard and very well used field chair. It was design to hold up someone in almost a ton of Battle Armor. It also was more than very strong, to hold something so fail looking. Even if she was faking it, she was out of her league. The small dark haired woman was both chained and tied to the chair, restricting every movement but for her head. What she did not know was that a thin wire cable was only about ¼ inch in diameter connecting to her restrains. It was running from the chair and her chains, under the wood floor all the way to a nearby parked cargo truck. Major Weston had worked with more than one type of combat cyborg in his life, and knew how strong they could be. No matter how frail they looked on the outside. They were all very strong, quick and oh so very lethal. He and his people, were not going to take any chances with this unknown combat cyborg. He also had one guard inside the tent by the opening and a second guard outside the tent, just in case armed with NG-IP7's ION rifles. The third person was in the parked cargo truck, and was also armed and armored.

When Weston entered the green skinned tent, he found the woman looking right at him. Both the head bag and mouth gags, had been removed not long after the ATV that had been in the camp. But not before mud covered ATV had come to a stop near the tent, which had been set up just for an event just like this. Weston had to fight down a chuckle, even if it was being used a lot earlier than anyone would have bet on. Even just a few days ago. The betting pool had ten to one odds. That they could not safely get a human form cylon in the tent for about two weeks, after the order had been placed by Major Weston. Someone either won a huge windfall of money, or everyone lost their shirts on this betting pool.

Weston know were the prisoner was in the tent, and did not to look around for her. "Hmmm so they have good hearing. She had to have heard me walking up to the tent. I was not trying to be quite but I'm not a loud mover by nature." Mike was thinking to himself as he watched her, watching him. She seemed calm right now, but Major Weston knew that could change in literally, a heartbeat. Major Weston, knew that she had been awake for the last half hour of the drive back from the combat site. But she had not made a move to give it away, and had stayed very still. But being to still, had been the giveaway that she was awake.

That had changed when they removed her from her softish bed in the cargo area of the armed ATV. Two large and strong men had lifter her out of the little cargo area of the ATV, and placed her on the ground, not to subtlety. While those two were dealing with the cylon frantically kicking as much as she could while still being hog tired. Two others had pulled the "Bed" off the pile of metal. It was in twenty/ twenty hindsight. They should have waited to open the overstuffed body bag until later. But in the second pairs of helpers excitement. They had opened the bag, were the living cylon could see what she had been forced to lay on.

When they removed the black bag, and she could tell that she had been laying on a filled body bag of her kind. She had not reacted well, to that little bit of new information. If the ropes had been made of normal stuff or plant fibers, she might have broken those bonds. The pair that had lifted her out of the ATV. Would have just let her scream and thrash around on the ground, but it took both of them to keep her in the same ten square feet or so of the dryish ground. Once the ATV had been unloaded biologic and metal parts. The two pair of humans had moved the still violently thrashing woman to the current tent. The noise and commotion had drawn a crowd with all of the noise she was generating, which kind of sounded like a wet cat mixed with bad bag pipe player.

It took a while for the crowd to break up, even after the prisoner was hidden inside the tent. It had been hoped, and all of the scouts had been asked to try to take one of the clone type cylons alive. Now the unlucky ones, and everyone else wanted to look at, what had so many people looking for. Major Weston had ordered the setting up of this tent, just in case on the first day. Now everyone in the camp, had wanted to know who had gotten both the brass ring. And of course who had won the betting pool, which had been running on the side. In fact the updated translation computer that Weston need had only arrived that morning. It had come in on a special high speed supply run from the Settlement, at Safe Port Harbor.

Major Weston looked at the nearby table and saw that device. He walked over to the table, never taking his eyes off of the cylon. The clyon was returning the favor and was racking the major like a weapons turret locked on to a high value target. After turning on the desk top computer, he took the only open seat in the tent. It just happened to be nearer to the internal guard, than to the restrained prisoner. It was all straight out of the interrogation hand book 101. Major Weston was going to fallow what he knew had worked in the past. He would continue to do so, until it proved not to be working. He was hoping that that he would not have to do anything exotic, just yet. He pushed that thought out of his mind and focused on what he needed to do.

#######

Kathy did in fact have very good hearing, just like every other human form cylon had. It was built in as standard equipment for all of them. It was not super hearing, like some entertainment show or anything like that. But it was well above average, compared to the average Colonial that could have been tested as a comparison. Just after the four strange men had started to chain her to the chair, she had tried to move some. She quickly found out that her new captors had been very smart. They had put the new restraints on her, before they had removing the rest of the road wise restraints. She had not really tried that hard to escape. After the shock of realizing that she had been captured by humans, and they had not end her life like she had hoped for all of these long months, had worn off. She had just waited to see what was going to happen next, and prey to her god that they would give her the final death she wanted. It also gave her a chance to review what little she could remember.

Kathy had woken up, as these strangers had transported her in the back of some kind of all-terrain truck. She had no way of being able to see or remember, how the humans had captured her. She was concerned when threw her upgraded hearing. She could not understand the limited voice communication, which she had been able to hear over the sound of the ATV moving through the forest. That was as the torture device was crashing through the undergrowth of this planets tall trees. She had no idea who long they had been traveling or in what direction. The mouth gag, and head covering was not helping, but at least she had kept from vomiting.

When her captures had finally stopped at the camp, and dumped her on the ground. She had been thankful that the strange speaking captors had removed her head covering and gag. She had thought that maybe she had died after all. And had been sent to Hell or the Colonial's Hades, to pay for her soul's long list of past crimes and sins. Then they drop the padding she had been laying on during the ride on the ground. The black bag had a clear area near the top of the strange looking bag. When the humans had dropped it to the ground it had turned towards her somewhat. She could see the face of another human form cylon staring back at her, with dead non blinking eyes peering out of the black bag looking back at her. It was very disturbing and she had not reacted very well at the sight. She had screamed herself hoarse until they had carried her into this tent. She had kept it up as they had chained her to this flimsy looking, but strong chair. After she had calmed down, and after they had quit touching her, she had gotten her fragile mind back under some kind of control. She had quietly cried for a time afterwards. She had a pair of long lines of tears to show for her effort. It did not take her long to come to the conclusion that it would not help her. She would not be a victim, it just was not in her nature. She did not let her mind wonder if that was because of her god, or due to the programing of being a cylon. She now had time to think about what was happening, and work out how she was maybe going to survive it. All the time she aware that she was not along.

She listened to the voices of people moving around the outside of her prison tent, and let her modified brain work on what she was hearing. It was a good use of time, after all it was not like she could do anything else to improve her situation. When the guards relaxed some, they would talk between themselves threw the tent flap door, now she could match the sound to some of the lip movements. All of this information, she knew deep down, would help her learn their language. But no matter what, the human like guards always kept an eye on her. She had no idea what they were saying, no matter how hard her brain worked on the problem. That was freaky strange to her, and it was starting to take up more and more of her of self-control to keep calm. That was because she knew, or had access to understand and speak, every language and dialect. Which was spoken in the 12 Colonies of Kobal, or any outpost that humans had set up since the fall of Kobal. All of those hundreds of years ago.

"Who were these people?" Crazy Kathy thought to herself. "They are not fraking Colonials, that is for sure. They did not talk right, and even usage of a few loaner words did not make any sense at fraking all. The guards are dressed, in what must have been some kind of body armor." Kathy had to quickly stop that line of thinking. And the less she thought about these people's weapons, the better for her current mental state. She had seen the Centurion parts unloaded from the same transport they had used for her. Every time the tent flaps had been blown open by the wind she could see the wreckage of her metal people. Her great vision made it so that she could tell that a lot of the damage had been made from the same type of weapons that she had seen before. It was those same weapons which seem to have the ability to stop most of the Centurions, from successfully downloading on the Basestar in orbit overhead. It had been a long and stressful day, and she had not been that rested before she had gone out on that last mission. Soon even a cylon would need to rest, and her eyes got heavy, and heavier until one eye blink failed to raise her eye lids again.

Kathy was even was able to get a few hours of sleep, even if it was not good deep sleep, but it was sleep never the less. The sleep was great, because it did flush out of her system, whatever they had used to knock her out in the first place. It also flushed out the built up beta-amyloid, which had accrued over the last few weeks, due to lack of sleep. She could have tried to escape after the extended nap. But it was almost a shock to her, was that she really did not want to escape from these people. At least not right now, anyway. That would change if they started to get aggressive with her, but she was still unsure how aggressive they would have to be. To make her that upset to want to go back to the cylon controlled New Caprica. Her mind was still that fragile about what she, herself, was. And how she know that she fit into the universe. The was the definition of a lost soul, even if the Colonial's would say that she did not have one of those.

The sun was rising, and one of the guards turned off the little electric space heater that was keeping her occupied space livable. If not at a very comfortable temperature, but not life threatening to a human much less a modified human from like the cylon. It was not long after the space heater was shut off, that her interest was piqued about what was going on. That was when a small box shaped computer, and screen was brought into the tent. It had been placed on a folding wooden table just out of reach of her from the chair. The new person that had put the computer on the table, did not even look at Kathy. Kathy had no idea who this person was, only that it was a male, and he had a strange looking sidearm stripped to his left hip. Another thing that Kathy noticed was that although the person setting up the computer was not looking at her. He was staying well out of way of any threat she might offer, if she did something dumb.

After the computer was set up, all Kathy could think of was that somehow it was going to be used during her interrogation. Now all she was doing, was waiting to see who was going to be her interrogator, and how they would start the show. It did not take her long to work out half a dozen moves and counter moves for most interrogation techniques that the Colonials were known to use. She just hoped that they were not like the Number One's or Two's. They had been the ones in charge about how they had "worked" on the Colonials prisoners, back in their blasted home planets. She had no idea what they were doing to the humans they had picked up after landing on this planet. Kathy was betting that it was not good and had mentally avoided the issue, until now. She was still thinking about that, and how she could counter the humans. If they turned out to be like those crazy frakers back in the mud field called New Caprica.

Kathy could hear that the steps walking through the mud and soil, as they were coming towards the tent that she was chain in. She could tell that it was a single person, with a measured gate, like a commander's gate she remembered from her first life. With a smooth motion the tent flap was pushed open and a new person enter her little world. A very fit middle aged man, with a very out of Colonial regulation cut of thick black haired entered the tent. He was in some kind of uniform she did not recognize. He walked thru the tent flap into the slightly darker prison with barely a split second of transition. She made eye contact with the new person, but movement drew her eyes to the left of the older man. Kathy had noticed the guard straighten up a little, when she looked up to see who had entered the tent of the prisoner she was guarding. The two people did not exchange any words, but the older man must have been a supervisor of some kind. This was just visible from the respect he was being given by the guard. Kathy just watched and waited, to see what would happen next. Because she had not been talking and the guards had been so quite. She found her own heart was racing, like it had not done for some time. She had forgotten how much she missed that feeling of a rush, it made her feel good in a way. The stranger met her eyes without blinking. He then took two or three steps into the tent, and reached out towards the desk computer and he touched something out of her line of vision. The computer made a slight buzzing sound, before the screen turned from black to green with gold letters displayed on it. The man kept one eye on her, while he adjusted a mike like device mounted on the side of the oddly shaped computer that Kathy had not noticed before. "Had he attached it somehow without her noticing it?" She was not sure. When he was satisfied with what he was doing to the computer. He walked backwards to a second but empty chair in the tent, which was a little away from the deck with the strange green lit screen.

###############

Major Weston made himself comfortable in the field chair, and watched the prisoner. Just as she watched him, in return. It had all the makings of an old school Mexican standoff. He was going over in his head, exactly how he wanted to handle this interrogation. As Weston evaluated the prisoner, he could tell that she had no idea about the chain under her chair. It was clear that she had not tried to escape or really test her bonds that were restraining her. He added that bit of information to the thin amount, he already knew about the cylons. After a while he finally decided how he was going to work this problem. He knew that he still just wanted to wait before he started his part of the dance. It now was a power play. That was all it was, pure and simple. Who had the power and who thought they had the power. When he noticed a slight shift in the way the woman was setting. He instantly knew the time was right to begin the field or tactical questioning.

Weston leaned over, a little towards the inner guard point now standing by the tent opening. Mike made sure to pitch his voice just right. "Jesse. Why don't you go and get something hot to eat for the two of you. If you don't mind. Can you both wait outside, while you eat? I will call out, if I need anything. This should be a quiet little talk, I think." Major Weston always kept one eye on the chained up prisoner at all times.

The female guard with a blank steer looked at the Major. Then turned quickly to look at the chain up cylon, and then back to the Major. But did not say anything to her commander. She did not even give that much of a look, to tell if she disapproved of the order or not. After a few seconds, she nodded her head up and down, to accept the order. All she did was put her large pistol sidearm in its low slung hip holster. She was simply moving from her lower torso, to leather holster in a smooth well practiced motion. With the weapon in its proper place she glided out the door with the grace, a lethal large hunting cat would have loved to have mimicked.

When the guard had left the tent and the tent flap had stopped moving. Major Weston pointed to the computer screen with the palm of his hand up and the fingers bring attention to the device on the table near Kathy. When Kathy fallowed where he was pointing, her eyes opened a little more at noticing what he was pointing at. On the screen now were words in purple text. It was in Caprican saying what he had told the guard. All the mental prep work that Kathy had done went right out the window. "How could that little machine, be that powerful? It had to be being per-processed some were else, and then re-transmitted here. Were they using networked computers, if so can I take advantage of that?" Kathy's mind going so fast a human forms could go, and in so many directions at one time. That she was starting to feel dizzy as she sat on the strange chair.

She quickly looked back to the older man, when he started talking to her in a language that she had no idea how to understand. "Everything we say in this room. " Major Weston was waving around the tent/room/prison and pointed her back to the computer on the desk. "Will be translated into both our languages and put on that display. It is also going to be put into a database, which will be reviewed by my superiors as well as put in our historic records. Do you understand what I am saying?" Major Weston stopped talking, tilted his head to one side and raised an eye brow as he waited for a reply of some kind to come from the cylon.

A slacked jawed Kathy looked back to the display screen while the man was talking, and watched as more purple letters were showing up on the screen. When she got the part of the texted that had asked her a question. She nodded to Major Weston that she understood, but the man did not say anymore right away. Her mind made a quick guess of what the man wanted. She waited for a few more seconds, then spoke aloud. She had not talked for hours, and after the screaming fit when she had first arrived at this camp. Her voice was a bit horse, but understandable. She said "I understand." In her native lounge, as clearly as she could. In purple letters on the screen. She was watching, and saw what she had said in Caprican and in Yellow letters was a strange set of scripted. What she did not know, was that it was in Standard English. She did assume that it was in whatever, the locals understood.

Major Weston cocked his head a little so that he could see the screen better. All the while he still keep an eye on the prisoner chained to the chair. "Good. My name is Major Weston. How would you like me to address you? I understand you're a Model Eight, but sometimes you pick up individual names that you preferred to be called by." He waited for the computer to show what he had said on the screen. He also was watching to see how she would react to his requested information. He was wondering if she would pick up the hint he had given her, about his people's knowledge base about their kind.

Kathy kept the rest of her body dead still, only let her eyes move as she read the text on the display screen. If she would have been a normal human she might have had to read the text, twice to believe what she was reading. As it was she only needed to go over the text about as long a Colonial would need to read the few lines. Kathy then gave the Major a small smile, which did not show any teeth. It was just skin and muscles moving on her face at exactly the amount she wanted them to, and it took her a lot of effort to this. It also gave her something to think about that was not related to these strange humans. "I picked the name Kathy some time ago. Let's go with that for now, if you don't mind. What are you going to do with me?" Her cylon mind was running through scenarios at an amazing rate, even faster than even she thought she could be able to. The downside was that the longer she spent in through about them, the darker they were becoming. The only way she know how to stop them, was to get some information of her own, and just think about how to control her facial muscles. What she did not know was that her mind and its computer augmented possessing power. It was being over worked or more to the point overloaded. She was not in as much control as she thought she was.

Weston smiled at the female looking AI, but took a few seconds longer than he needed to reply to her question. He wanted her to think that that, he had not decided what to do with her yet. "Let's just talk for a bit first, before we get into the heavy stuff Kathy. So why don't you tell me about this little problem you have the 12 Colonies of Kobal?" Weston was using a light tone, and even shifted in the chair to give a more relaxed look or appearance of that anyway. It was data mining time, and he was hoping that such a general question would turn up a few nuggets of useful intelligence. How she answered this question would help refine what to do next. If she counter punched with a question, he would get more direct. What he was hopping was that she would just start talking and filling in information, she thought they might have already.

Of all the questions he could have asked Kathy? That was not even on her very long mental list, which she had worked out already in her head. She just blinked a few times before she could say anything. It was very odd and rare occurrence to mentally stump a cylon. This Major Weston had done, on the very first question to leave his mouth. When Kathy's mind finally caught back up to the real world. She countered with her own question to try to knock Weston off of his game. "I know that you have talked to Colonials, before now. So why do you want me, to talk about something like that Major Weston?" Kathy's mind was still racing, and for the moment she was not thinking about if the humans were going to torture her or not.

This time the smile on Major Weston's face, was not so much a true smile. It was more of a knowing smirk. "Well Kathy that is a good question. Let's just say that we have a very old saying back where we come from. It goes some like. "There are three sides to every story. You have his side, their side, and the truth". My boss, and I want to see what is what. We would like to hear the story from your point of view. We want know what happened, and what is happening now. That is unless you just want my people to gauge all of your kind, on what the Colonials have told us so far?" Weston tilted his head and watched the female cylon.

Now Kathy was very now confused again, and cylons did not like being that way. She was not as bad as the one called John was, but she still did not like it. What she did not know, was that the confusion as visible on her face. It also was very readable by the Major sitting across from her. Weston had no idea if it was a ploy or the real thing but he made note of it. Then sputtering Kathy started talking again, almost too fast for the computer to translate what she was saying. "But you fired on us first? It seems like you have made up your mind already, on whose side you're on." She tried to channel the tone of voice that a Number One might use, and utterly failed at the attempted.

Weston was not surprised she went there so quickly, and he allowed the smirk to stay on his face. He even already had a prepared and well-practiced counter commit, all ready to go. "Yes we did, but your side did invade our planet, and seized territory. Without even bothering asking us first or even saying hi before you started shooting up the place. Where I come from, that is considered very rude, at the very least. Wars have started for a lot less than that were I come from. If you get what I mean?" Major Weston looked down his nose a little, to make sure she knew. That he was not making a joke about what had happened. Even if he had used a light tone of voice to deliver the comment. With that done Weston waited to see how she would reply to his statement.

Kathy must have been a little groggy from the lack of sleep, and left over drugs in her system. Because she did not try to punch a hole in the story she had just been given. Instead she just started talking, and ended up answering both the question and a lot more. She stared from the very beginning of the new war against the 12 Colonials of Kobal. She went all the back to where the Number One's had shown everyone the images, and recordings of the spy mission the Colonial Fleet launched across the armistice line. She went into detail on how they had voted to attack the Colonials because of it, and now more and more of the other lines were thinking something had been off about their initial briefing about the incident.

Kathy even went into how the Colonies had been infiltrated, and jobs given out. As well as, what those jobs were supposed to do to help the cylon surprise attack succeed. She went into high detail about the computer virus, and the nuclear bombardment. It was enough detail that Weston felt his stomach want to dump its contents on the wooden floor at his feet. She covered how they continued the nuclear bombardment. Even after the President of the Colonies had tried to surrender to the attacking cylon ships in orbit. Sometimes she would have to stop the story, because she was crying. As it turned out, the machine could not pick up her words over the sound of her sobs. But after a while the crying and sobbing would slow down. She would then pick the story back up exactly where she had left off. She told Major Weston about the cylons hunting down of the survivors, and blasting them to dust. As they lay helpless and in disabled space ships free floating in space. She even told him about the "Farms" on many of the Colonial home planets after the main attack.

Kathy was able to go into some detail about what they were for, and how they were going about it. She told them everything, like a long overdue confession to your life long known priest you have not seen in years. If you asked her later about his interview, she would rightly claim, not remember what she said to the Major. Major Weston's computer kept every word she said, view able and a copy of an audio file of her words. So that anyone who wanted it, could review what she had said that morning. In later years it would be required study on Colonial history. Her statement, even had included the parts of her story. Like why she was out on those all night scouting tasks, and leading a group of Centurions that had led to her capture. The whole story took a little over two hours to be retold and recorded to Major Weston and the little computer on a wooden deck. Sometimes history in not made in large cities, or in fancy office buildings, but in tents on cold and muddy fields.

Major Weston was looking at the broken woman who was head down and crying again, while she was still chained to the chair. He could not think of her as anything less than, a very emotionally shattered woman and not a machine. Weston was a very good poker player, but he was having a hard time controlling himself right now as the woman cried and sobbed. He had a lot of information to go thru, and he needed to get it all done now! He pulled out a little pocket computer, and hit two buttons on the little device. It would download a low bandwidth text document, which would contain everything Kathy had said from the larger parent computer. When the little device finished doing what it had been told. Two green lights flickered on to let the biologic know it had completed its task. Weston looked back at the crying women slumped over in the field chair. He was thinking that if she had not been chained and tied to a chair. He thought she might have been in a fetal position on the mud covered wooden floor. It was very heart breaking, even for a combat veteran as hard as Major Weston was to deal with.

"Kathy look at me." Major Weston had to say that three times in a soft no threatening tone. Before Kathy looked up at him, from her head down position. Even then she was not looking at him, but more just in the general direction of his face and a point on the tent wall behind his head.

Mike knew this but it would still work for him. "That is going to have to do for now. Thank you for tell me your side of what happened. I am going to have to send this to my commander and the leaders of our government. I will make sure to note that you were very helpful and forth coming." Weston was thinking to himself, "Now what am I going to do with you?" He leaned farther back into the field chair. He knew that he was fighting the urge to pat her on the shoulder to comfort her in some kind of way.

"Good." That was to acknowledge her looking up at him, but not what that she said anything to him. "It's about time for our midday meal. I am going to have one of the guards get something for you to eat and bring it back for you." Weston had to stop talking and then point to the screen because he was not sure that Kathy was tracking what he was saying. After she looked at the screen, and he could see her head making small movements like she was reading, he continued what he was thinking. "I'm betting that you have not had anything to eat, or drink in a while. It's going to be a light meal. Now I will promise that it will be safe, and not drugged in any way. The guards will untie one hand and arm, so that you can feed yourself. If you try anything, the other guard will shoot you with a type of stunning device we know will work on your kind."

Weston was betting that human form cylon would not know he was lie about that little bit. He was counting on being able to get a little bit of a bluff in on her. If she did try something they would attempt to stun her, and if that did not work she would be hit with deadly force. "It will not feel good, and you will not feel good for some time after it is used on you. If they have to stun you, then we will have to do this the old fashion way. That is when you wake up again. I know you don't want to speak right now, so just nod your head up and down. If you agree to behave as a normal person while your being given food and water. If you do not think you can obey, then do not move. We will try to work something out after; I get back briefing my bosses on what you have told me already."

Kathy looked at the screen and nodded that she would not try anything, while they were giving her food and water. Major Weston took her at her word for now, and left the tent, again moving a measured pace that he was known to have. It would not do anyone any good if he was seen rushing out of the tent that held the cylon POW. As soon as the tent flap had closed behind him, he was almost face to face with the two guards. They had a concerned expression on their pair of face, but Weston waved it way with a simple hand jester.

He gave Jesse the direction on what he wanted done, but made sure that she knew two things. One was that she was not to risk her life, and the other item was that the cylon must not be allowed escape at any cost. If Jesse had to, she was to use any weapon she needed. To make sure the stranger did not live to see another day, if it came to that. Now that the prisoner was taken care of, Major Weston made sure he grabbed a sandwich for himself and went to the communication trailer. From there, he had them pass a messaged back to Safe Port Bay. It simply said that he needed to physical talk to the three leaders as soon as they could get the time.

In the message he sent was a code word, which would let them know it was about the capture live cylon. Before he left the communication tent, he left word that when the call came in? They were to track him down, no matter what or when it was. He left a list of stops he was going to make around the support camp in the forest, before he thought he would be returning to the command tent. With the important immediate task compete. He now had to make the rounds of the camp to make, that had been delayed too long due to the meeting with the POW. He grabbed another sandwich, out of the mess tent this time along with something hot to drink to take along with him.

The first in the list of stops, were to see the Stapps in their roped off working area. They had set up a lab area using there machine massive machine, and its labs. It was their base of operation, living, and studying of all of the amazing things coming into the support camp. It just happened that they had set up shop not too far away from the communication tent exit, so it made since to stop there first. They had set up a little, but tall canvas cover. It look like a lento looking thing tied off to the taller machine as the high point. With it being this time of day, and the people he was seeking. Weston knew they were going to be under the cover, enjoying a hot meal. Before they returned to whatever they had been doing before it had been time to refuel themselves. Weston knew that they did not spend all of their time in the Behemoth exploration machine or even in the camp. All he knew was that they got the job done, that no one else had the skills to do.

June Stapp was the first of the group to see, that the Major was walking towards them through the mud of the camp. The grass and weeds that had grown in the limit supply of sunlight had long ago been pushed under the mud by travelers. When Weston was close enough to hear without her shouting to loud, she called out to him. "So Major. It looks like you had a full day already. Would you like to have a seat and take a load off?" With June's words to alert the men, the rest of the group turned, to see the ground force commander coming their way.

When June started talking, the rest of the table stopped taking and turned to see who she was talking to. Major Weston gave a friendly wave to the group of six setting at the wooden picnic table, and with a slight smile he accepted the offer. "You could say that again, June. I'm waiting on the big boys to call me back, before I can finish what was started this morning. I thought I would stop by and see if any of you have an updates on your projects. That I could pass along when the boys on high decide to ring me back?"

John Stapp always likes to be first brag about something he had done, or more to the point take credit for what others might have done. So it was little surprise that he jumped in to the conversation, before anyone else could get another word in edge wise. "Well, I was working on those clone bodies you drop off. They told me that these Colonials no real idea, on who might be a clone or not. The report I read a few days ago was very thin on facts about them. It did say that they also could not get any kind of test, to work it out for them." John Stapp let a very self-satisfied smile plaster his face from hairline to chin. "I used some software, and other odds and ends that you use to repair and replace cybernetics from back home. I was able to use the lash up to detect cybernetic fibers. It was able to pick it out in the brain, muscles, and even the bones of the bodies they brought in." It should have been impossible, but his smile got even bigger. "I also found an abnormal amount of silicon consistently threw out the bodies, and the parts of bodies you dropped off."

John Stapp stopped talking was waited for some kind of reply from the military man. The silence was only for a few seconds. When Major Weston did not fill the still air, fast enough John started talking again. "The bodies and all of the spare parts were made up of exactly 0.17% of silicon by mass. That is way above normal for a human, like four times normal or even healthy. I don't think it will take too much time to separate the clones from everyone else. Once I do some more testing to lower the number of false positives, and one or two other problems." John was speaking and, the pride was seeping through every word he said. That is up onto the last few, which he just brushed over, to show how little they mattered in his mind.

The Major let his smile get larger on his smooth skin face. It was almost huge, but people who knew him would have called it fake. But John would not have noticed that bit of detail about the Major. Weston knew just how to stroke John's ego, to get the best work out of him. "Now that is great to hear, and damn quick work. That was a hell of a job you did, John. If you need to do any more test on it, we have a live one. You might want to use her as a test subject." He started to let smile start to drop off of his face, and he looked down his nose at the rogue scientist. Weston let the smile fall complete off his face, and a stern voice came out of the military commander. "When, I say testing. I mean nothing, that is in any way could be called evasive. I am treating her as a POW. I don't want to come back one day, and find out you decided to do a vivisection or something to her." Weston was speaking not in jest, he was deadly serious about the subject.

John was about to say something else, when his wife put her hand over his on the table top. This stopped John from saying something, he might and more probably would have regretted later. That was because Major Weston, was not someone to think that you were smarter than and June Stapp knew this. John had done some things that were on or even over the edge of legal or moral before, even by the loose standards of Rifts Earth. Then she said in a voice that John knew well enough not to contradict, that is if he wanted to sleep with both eyes closed ever again. "We won't do anything like that Major Weston. We have a portable non evasive device put together already, we just to do some fine adjustments to it. It should be painless to whoever we're testing it on, only a few needle sticks and some blood drawn is what I'm looking at for a final product for the near term."

Major Weston knew that John was a prideful man but he always got the job done, no matter what the might be the job. It was just John had the bad luck of being a jerk, when he dealt with others outside of his small group of friends. The Major also did not want to antagonize the other man, if he did not have to. That is only as long as John knew who his boss was out here in the forest. Weston had used the stick, now it was time to use the carrot. "Good, I just want to make sure we were all on the same page. I know whatever you come up with be great. Now if you would excuse me, I have to go checkup with the weapons guys. I can only hope they are as effective as you all have been John." Weston looked around the table of people who all had stopped eating at his approach. "I'm sorry, I interrupted your meal. Please have a nice day." Weston used this excuse to leave the group to their meal, and gave them a head nod of thanks to go along with his words. The little break, did give him a little recharge. He thought not he could make it to his next stop, despite the lack of sleep and an already very stressful day.

The next group on his list to see, was set up next to the small range were the first set of weapons testing had taken place. The range now was a lot more finished looking, but still not visible by anyone flying over the trees tops. As Weston was walking up to the weapons range he notice something's had changes since his last visit. Someone had set up fixed shooting tables, to hold different types of weapons. Even the targets were now covered in such a way, that the surrounding area would not be visibly damaged by any misses.

This area was now occupied by a group of what could only be described as weapons enthusiast and the few weapons armorers that had been on board the ships. They had set up living tents and even small workshops in that area. They had already started setting up there before Major Weston realized what they were doing. When he did find out after a couple of days, he had to admit it was a perfect location for them now that this was no longer a mobile camp. A leader of the group had come forward by the name of James Sullivan, who had been a listed as one of colonist that had boarded the Lucky Find. Weston knew where to find the leader of the group, even if it was what most people would have called a normal meal time. James would be in a wood and canvas lento style building. It had been turned into the main repair and evaluation area. For the strange weapons and armor trickling into the camp, that had been so kindly donated by the cylons.

Weston walked up to the area where he thought the man would be or most likely would be anyway. He had not been to this place in a few days now, and it had visibly grown in his short absences. They had improved building since the last time he had the time to stop by. The old thrown together half open lento, now was almost a building worthy of the name building. Weston could see that a few tree logs had been cut and split for its construction. Now a raised square area had been laid out as the wooden floor. They had ribs set running up to some cross beams a dozen feet off the ground, which now held the canvas of the onetime lento to make a rain roof. The wood walls were only complete to about four feet up from ground level foundation. Above that level all the way to the roof line was still only fabric covered. But from the looks of area around the unfinished building, that would change very soon. Weston was betting as soon as someone had any free time or the will. They were going to be cutting more lumber to put the almost cabin into what most people called "The Dry". That is if, or when they had some more free time to do the work.

The door to the "building" was a damage resistant plastic drape, which could have been in the cargo hold of one of the two ships. Weston walked up to the doorway, and with his right hand pulled the drape off to one side. He took a long few seconds, before stepping into the cover area under the raw wood cross beams. Anyone else would have thought that the interior would have been a Dark Age hole in the wall, half built hunting cabin. That would have been a mistake; this was a workshop, and a high tech one at that. So Weston entered not a dark smelly cabin, but a very brightly light one, that was just single large room. Even if it had wooded floors and half built wooden walls. It was full of tables in the center area, and shelves running along the all of the exterior walls.

All of the tables had equipment spread out on it, in various stages of assembly. Some of them were cylon weapons, and some of them had Earth tech weapons spread out on next to them. The center of the room's main table, had four people working on one of the cylon bigger weapons. The man he was looking for was in that group of people. He had a strange round glass lens with lights, affixed on his head by an odd bill like hat. The lights were pointing down into the guts of the weapon, you simply put light on to the area that was drawing your attention. Major Weston was not going to interrupt what looked to be a delicate operation, on a mystery weapon. A weapon system that none of his people knew that much about. Major Weston was hoping that this group would be able to answer the number of growing question he had about them and there users.

He did not have to wait very long. Maybe three or four minutes, before the man he was watching make a happy little sound before speaking louder. "Now there we go!" James had a little tool in his right hand. It had been hidden from view by the heavy cylon weapon. When James pulled it out, the tool was holding a small hunk of odd shaped metal from the heart of the cylon weapon. "It looks like this hunk of low power junk, should work now. I think one of the cartridges failed in the feeding process, and one of the fragments gummed up the rest of the operation."

James was holding the offending object out from his face and show the rest of the group. Almost like it was a prize of great worth or great danger. When James looked up from the object on the small tool. He notice the Major waiting for him, but it was the Major who spoke first of the pair. "So James what have you got there?" Weston used his chin to point in the general direction of the object in his hands.

James smiled and offered Weston the metal hunk and small holding tool, for the other man to see a lot closer. "It was a type of misfire common to Open Breach firing systems. I would have called it a cook off, but I don't know how hot the weapon was before this happened. Then I was able to get into the guts of the hunk of junk." He waved the offending object in the air. "It looked like a round catastrophic detonated before being fully chambered. Then parts of the shell casing went everywhere they shouldn't go. It did not damage the overall weapon too badly, but it jammed up the works real good. It was the devil's own pain, to get all of the little fragments out of the workings and tighter fitting parts of the little beast."

James used his block looking chin to point towards the silent group around the table. "One of the others will check the weapon over again. I want them to make sure that all the metal shards are picked out of the internal workings." He tossed head back to indicate the other three people, and they went to work on the cylon hand carried weapon at his vocalized order. James reached into a pocket and then passed through the air with a high and slow toss to the Major. A rounded and pointed object that the Major was expected to catch sailed threw the air.

Major Weston snatched the flying object heading to his face, out of midair with ease. He looked the object over, and was trying to remember when he had seen something like it before. Then it hit him like a bolt out of the blue. It looked somewhat like a Wilk's round made for some of older weapons to make them effective against current threats. He had worked with them before, and he even had few here with him at this forward base. They just were not thought of as front line weapons for any real combat against monsters and the like.

Modern weapons projectile ammunition used a more complex shape of a pointed cone projectile, mounted into a square case charge. Nothing like the round silver or chrome looking case in his hands now. That case held the propellant, which was used to make the pointy end go very fast and hit very hard. The square cases that held the propellant of the ballistic weapons, stacked better in a magazine fed systems. That meant that you could carry more of them, in a given space or volume. That was covered in a class of logistics 101, Weston had taken years ago on a whim. All of this went flashing threw Major Weston's brain at the speed of thought. "So the ammunition tech looks very old school. Am I missing something, James?" He was looking at James, with a questioning looking on his face. From what Weston knew about James. He was not one to waste someone's time or play games with them, unless there was a point to them.

James smiled a big toothy grin, which looked odd on his huge chinned face. He had worked with the Major only a few times before. James and his family had boarded these god forsaken ships, so James knew the other man was very sharp. "It is older tech, but what you're looking at is a reload for the bigger of the two weapon systems, we have seen these cylons using. We have identified three different types of reloads or types of ammunition for their weapons. The one in your hand is a mixed of different soft metals on the projectile end."

James gave a slight negative shake of his head. "It's not what we would use in any type of military weapon. It would be great for killing big game like dinosaurs, or unarmored humans, but not anything much else that I can think of. The soft metals could do a lot of damage to anything that you wanted to bring home to eat, but against anything remotely tough. Not so much. I would bet that it would be great as a hunting device for those things. Like say these all of those Colonial humans that escaped them. But for our people? Unless you were very unlucky, and say caught one in the face. You would be sore, but okay to keep fighting."

James started to turn to one side, and used his right arm to point at a wall mounted shelf near the Major that had similar objects standing up on their larger bases. James shifted closer to the shelf and held up objects that had the same coloring as the ones on other shelf near the Major. "The other two types of rounds we have identified, looked to be a type of High Explosive Rounds or high damage rounds of some sort." James picked up a second round, but this one had a blue colored tip on the projectile. Otherwise it looked exactly like the one in Weston's hand. "We have not been able to figure out what the explosive charge is made of. We do know that the rounds got a bigger bunch, compared to the soft metal ones for its size. The second explosive round is much the same, only it puts more damage under the skin compared to the other two rounds we have seen so far. So far everyone one of them that we have cut into has detonated on us, during the cutting." James made a face that was a little bit pained mixed with a little bit of embarrassment. "We are working on different ways to find out what the explosive charge is without cutting into one of them anymore. I will let you know how that works out in a few days. I cannot give you a timeline for that. Were kind of new to this kind of work, if you get what I mean Major Weston." James was looking at the Major trying to read what might be going on in his head. James quickly realized that he did not know the man well enough to figure it out, yet.

James reached back again to shelf behind him, and picked up a third round to show the Major. This one was more pointed, and had an odd wrapping round the black coated bullet end. Major Weston picked up a second one round off the shelf, and was tapping the pointed end while the other man kept on talking.

James just kept talking, but always he was watching the Major as he looked at and tapped the alien made round. "This one has a two part bullet. The outer ring falls off when it leaves the barrel of the weapon. It's made of a very soft metal, almost like a lead alloy of some kind and not plastic like we would use to do the same job. The dart part of the projectile is made of the same metal, which the metal walking machines use for both outer armor and internal structure. It's very hard and with less wind resistances, but starts off with the same muzzle energy as the rest of the projectiles. When it hits something, it tries to force its way through the armor plate. We are calling this type of round an APDS round. It's going to be a while before we can give you a base line, on how they will do against all of our armor types." James put the cylon made ammunition back on the self near him.

The Major was looking the ammunition in his hand and was starting to worry. They had pulled off the ambush against a larger group of cylons. They even had not lost anyone in the battle when they blasted all of those cylons. But that now might have been more to do with luck, than to any of their skills. Several of the scouts on the defensive line had been hurt during the attack, but nothing serious had been reported. That might have been again lucky that the few Tin heads on that muddy field had been with heavy weapons. And they all had been taken out first, more by luck than orders. "So James with what you know now? How bad do you think the other build in weapons they have can they hit a target? The internal weapons the Tin head have did not seem that powerful." Weston was keeping his voice level and almost board, to cover how much he was worry about the cylon firepower that had just been described to him.

James was watching the other man closely. He knew he should not have led the other man on like this, but sometimes you had to just poke the bear. James let a sly grin cross his face as he answered the question. "Oh I would not worry too much about those built in weapons of the Tin Heads. You would have to be hit two or maybe three times, and then with the HE or AP rounds. All in the same spot to equal a single hit from an early model C-18 laser pistol on our body armors. I would think the range and targeting were better, than that old pistol could do. But the stopping power just is not there, when you get down to it. Now I would like to check out the propellant they use in the shell casing. We might be able to use it to reload conventional weapons, without having to hand make the ramjet projectiles to have the improved punch. I don't think they will be as powerful as the ramjet rounds, but they might be easier and quicker to make. That is if we can make the propellant in bulk in anything like a safe condition."

Major Weston looked at the bullet in his hands and rolled it around with his fingers, a few more times. He was counting to ten in his head. It would not get anything done, jumping down James's throat for pulling his chain like he had done. "I should have just asked, instead of assuming about the capabilities of these heavier weapons. Have you been able to test any of the Colonial like weapons and body armor we have collected, yet?"

James made a face that like he bitten into a rotten apple, and found half a worm looking back at him. "No, have any come in? I checked at first light, and I was told that no one had turned any in yet." James stopped talking and tilted his head. "Do we have some?" Now it was his turn to wonder if the Major was pulling the same kind of trick on him.

Major Weston pulled out a list from a jacket pocket, and made a note to one side. The eye and pen started going down the rest of the list looking for something. "I forgot who I told to pick that stuff up and bring it over to you. I will have a message posted in the command tent, to turn any in that was found if it has not happened yet." When James brought up Colonial, Weston's brain brought up a forgotten bit of information that should have been addressed already. Not for the first or even tenth time he thought he needed to get an assistant.

Weston started worrying somewhat, now that he was thinking about Colonial stuff. That was because Robin and Eva along with the Colonial they were escorting, had not checked in to the camp's office yet. If they did not check in by dark, he was going to have to see about sending Max out to see if he could find them out in the wilds. After he wrote another note to himself, he returned his attention to the man standing in front of him. James for his part was waiting quietly, while Weston made his notes. "I've got to go to my next meeting, James. If you have anything for me, let me know. Don't wait for me to come by and check in on you and your buddies. You might be risking lives, if you wait. You have done a good job, and hope you and your teams are having fun with this."

The weapons expert smiled and nodded his head in understanding of the guidelines, he had just been given. "That is about all we have for now, Major. I know where you live. If anything earth shattering comes up. I will get word to the command tent as fast as I can. If we don't have any of the Colonial items by dark, I will make sure to send you a personnel message, before I call it a night. Does that work?"

Major Weston nodded head, but was almost run over by a person running through the tent flaps and into him. Before he could even take a single step to leave. It was only Major Weston's quick reflexes, and a nearby table that stopped him from being knocked off his feet. "Whoa slow down there, before you run someone down and they are taken to the medic."

The runner was a young woman around 16 years old or maybe a little younger. Before the Major could remember, that she was the on call runner for the communication shack today. She started sputtered out her message, without a thought that it might be sensitive information. After all they had not told her that she might need to be quite when she delivered the message. They had only told her, that speed was imperative to find Major Weston and a list of places he might be.

In between gasps for breath the young woman got out her message. "Sir, you have to go back to the shack. They are will be calling any minute, SIR!" The runner's hands went to her knees, and she was bent over trying to suck air, deep into her abused lungs. She was the fastest of all of the runners, and it did not matter if they were in the Safe Port Bay or out here in the sticks. She was a sprinter, just don't ask her to run more than two miles in a day.

Major Weston did not have to be told, who "They" might be. He would have known who she was referring to, even if he had not left a message for them earlier. That he needed to take up some of "their" time as soon as it opened up. Weston patted the girl on the hunched over shoulders. "Then let's get going." As he was leaving the half-finished building, he called back to the head of this working group. "Thanks James, see you at dinner." He gave a slight pause. "I hope." Then he was gone out of ear shot of weapons expert. He would not have heard if the other man had said anything, or not to his back. The cloth drape was still swaying at the passing moving bodies of the runner and Major Weston passage. As his words made it to the other side of the one room cabin.

Major Weston did not run so much as just walked with his normal long and quick steps. The young runner was able to keep up with him, but she still was trying to re-oxygenate her body. So it was not as easy, has she would have hopped to keep up to the ground force commander. She was not going to let some old man, beat her back to the command tent. She was still winded, when she made back to report. That she had completed her task only one step ahead of the person she had been sent after. The Major went straight to his office, and waited near the old style phone to start sounding off to him. While he waited for that to happen. He reviewed and updated some of the waiting reports, until the old/new device made the belling ringing sound. It was the normal sound for its type of device for almost four hundred years now. Some classics never need to change.


	16. Chapter 16 chpt 9a Shocking News

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

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When the device on his desk started to make noise, Major Weston did not jump to pick up the receiver right away. However the phone did not make the noise for long, before the receiver was pressing at Weston's left ear. There was only the one communication hard line, going all the way back to the Settlement in Safe Port Bay. This meant using one for voice only communication, was only done when it was very, very important otherwise other means of information transfer were used. The wire was best used sending compact data packets, down the insulated copper line. While this meeting was going on, no data was going to be flowing between outposts and headquarters. They just had not had time to increase the bandwidth available that far from the center of activity at Safe Port Bay. Major Weston doubted that the available bandwidth would increase anytime soon.

Major Weston took a breath threw his nose before he opened his mouth to speak. "This is Major Weston." The distance the signal had to travel both ways, made for a time lag between talking. It was only a hand full of seconds going each way but, it was a pain for both sides to have to deal with. It had taken him some time to get use to that time lag. By now it was second nature for parties at both end of the line. One of the good things about the time lag, was that it made you think a bit more before you said something. That could be a good thing for people who tended to "talk angry'.

Mike had to almost strain to hear the voices over the static on the long copper line at first. After what seemed like a long time, a voice came back on the line. A little solar powered computer box about two thousand miles away auto adjusted the signal to help with the volume. The delay was because of a mix of problems down the line from Major Weston's tent. One was that the line was made of copper in the first place, and not some kind of coaxial or fiber optic line. The other issue was the shear distance the signal had to cover, even at the speed of light. This delay would have been experienced by anyone how had made an overseas call anytime, until around the late 1990's when technologies progressed away from copper lines to other types. And the delay was then not so noticeable, because of orbiting satellites that started coming available to non-military companies.

As the line cleared of static the voice became clearer. "Major Weston we have you on speaker for the whole council to hear and also almost all of the alternates are in the room at this time. I'm not going to do a roll call, unless you want one. Over." Over was the signal that they person on the other end had stopped talking and it was clear for the other party to start talking.

"That is okay with me, Sir. Whoever you want to know this information. Well that is up to you gentlemen to work out. I have an update text digital report, which will be sent to you all via text messages after the meeting. I would like to start with a bottom-line up front. What we were told by the contacts with the Colonials. Is now proved to be basically true, and in most parts we were given the tamer high points. I'm still having trouble believing that, but it's true."

Major Weston stopped talking for just a few second, more to center his thoughts than anything else. "The early parts of the story were checked out, with a captured clone cylon. The cylon is that one type, which we call a Brunette and the Colonials call a Number Eight. She goes by the name of Kathy or Kathy 8. She was captured by Scout Robin and Scout Eva a few days ago, with a few trang gun hits to her center chest. She was not drugged, tortured, or otherwise motivated to answer my questions after the trangs wore off. She said that the key reason the war between them started up again. Was because of a lone spy fighter that flew into their space on a recon mission. After the cylons or Colonials blew it out of space she was unsure of what happened to the spy mission. The cylons spent months infiltrating the human planets, with the human form cylons. Why did they already developed human forms cylons, she did not know and I did not push that hard to find out. When the surprise attack was started on the Colonial's controlled planets, space stations, and ships. They lead it off with a computer attack that destroyed the Colonials ability to defend themselves completely and totally. This worked at first on the space base warships, civilian operated ships, and also the ground base defensed. When it was unleashed against them in the first few minutes of the sneak attack. She used the words sneak attack, ambush, and surprise attack all threw her interview. She clearly stated that the battle plan worked just like the Cylon high command had planned it. For the most part, except for the Battlestar Galactica and a handful of civilian ships she helped escape."

Major Weston stopped talking after dropping his bombshell. He waited until he knew, that the people on the other end had a chance to reply. When they did not reply or react to what he had already said. He went along with the next part of his planned update. "The prisoner also confirmed me. The Cylons continued the mass nuclear attack, or bombardment of the habitat planets. Even after unconditional surrender was offered and communicated on all open channels to them, by the surviving Colonial leadership. The stories of them hunting down and blow apart helpless passenger ships, was also true. Kathy 8 went into some detail about how this was done. I have the text of her statement and audio files, but I would not listen to them after eating a meal. What did match from what the Colonial told us? Was that the attacks continued even after those ships had been signaled of intent to give up and surrender to the cylon." Major Weston stopped talking again, and he had to fight a flash back of what Kathy had told him. He had to swallow hard, what he had just relayed to his boss was that the cylons had committed multiple actions that were still called war crimes. And he still was not to the bad part of what he had learned today, yet.

When the silence was starting to drag a bit. Major Weston start up talking again, he had expected to get some kind of reaction from that bit of information. "What we did not have a lot of information on before, was on was the medical experiments they were doing on the few survivors. The survivors that the medical experiments were focused on are worse than we thought and were told by the Colonials only as hear say. They were done on the few women of youth, which had not been wiped out by the ground sweeps. Those ground sweeps had been done by the mass landing of what they called Centurions. That was after the orbiting ships had stopped dropping large nuclear bombs on the surface. The orders to ground forces seemed to have been to wipe out all human life. No matter what. Sometime later, and our POW did not know when. That order was changed to kill all humans, unless you were a health young woman but of child baring years. Those that fit that statement were collected and brought to a few centralized point. That was after the Centurions had killed all others to include babes in front of their eyes."

Major Weston stopped talking again and looked at the communication device called Phone. He waited to see if anyone wanted to chime in on the information he had just passed along. This time, as soon as Weston had stopped talking, the active line carried sound back to his waiting ears. The tone coming from a different voice. It was just enough to give Weston a hint of how the news was being taken. The answer was… not that well. Then Weston had to repeat that last part of the briefing twice more, before Captain Kelly finally intervened on the voice only line. Captain Kelly suggested that any more questions on that subject. Were to be held until after the updated report could be sent, and reviewed by them in the Settlement. Captain Kelly told the group on the same end that he was on. That more refined, and pointed questions could be sent back to the Major at a later time. After a few rumblings, Captain Kelly asked Major Weston to continue his briefing from his last stopping point.

Both of Weston's ears were now hurting, now that he had to flip the phone between both sides of his head as one would start to hurt more than the other one. He would have to repeat this move every few minutes to even out the pain being inflected on his ears. "That covers what had happened between the Colonials and Cylons before and during this new war. I stopped by the Stapps before this meeting. We might have a clone detector ready in a few days for testing. One odd thing of note that needs to reviewed in later questioning of the POW. She said that they only seem to have a few different clone types or human form cylons. The Eight model said they have dozen total types of these human looking cylons. This matches up with what we have been told by the Colonials. When I asked to describe them to me. She could only recall seven different models when I asked her repeatedly. I will finish this up with, that she got very agitated when I told her the numbers did not add up to twelve. She was very instant, that they did match up to the number twelve. I have no idea what to make of that, but I don't think she was lying." Weston had to stop talking to take a sip of fruit juice and switch ears again. "We only have, really just stared doing real scientific test on the cylon weapons tech. It is my opinion and my opinion only. That all of the cylon and Colonial looking ground deployed weapons. So far seem to be weak in damage output compared to ours. But they are still a threat, and they also have a lot of them, like a metric crap ton of them. At this time I don't know how we well be able to properly evaluate any of the space based, or large scale weapons at this time. Or more importantly, how we would get our hands on any of those types of weapons to test. I have my staff working on idea, but to tell you all the truth. I don't know how to compare weapons like that, with what we have on hand. I have not been able to find anyone that even claims to have firsthand knowledge of weapons systems in this range. We are working on some ideas. On how we might be able to get access to what the Colonials call Raider and Heavy Raider weapons. At this point in time, they are just ideas and not what I would call close to be a workable plan." Major Weston took a breath and let long pause to develop to let that information sink in with the group on the other end of the line. It also would give the people on the other end a chance to chime in if they wanted to say something. That is if they wanted to, Weston was dreading some of the questions that might get thrown back at him.

A different voice came back over the receiver in Weston's ear, after a several long seconds of quiet that he had let happen. "Major have you been able to get a reply from the Colonials about our package. I thought we had a brief report that a Colonial had come out from the encampment during the night, but I have no seen a second report on this subject. How long would you suggest we wait before we might try so send a second person in?"

Weston could not identify the voice on the line, but it really did not matter to him. After a few seconds and the question was not countermanded, Mike gave his reply. "Before we ambushed the enemy force. A Colonial was picked up by a pair of our scouts sneaking out of the cylon controlled camp. At the ambush site, I saw that it was Jammer that had come out of the encampment in person. He was fighting alongside the pair of scouts that had picked him up. We had to do a pretty wide scatter, after the fire fight. I do know that the pair of scouts that were still escorting him, but they have not made it back to camp yet. I know he was alive when we broke contact, but that is all I know for a fact right now. If they don't report in by dark to the camp's command post? I was thinking about contacting Rex or Max, and see if one of them could find out where they were. And get the information if not the package, back to me on the quickest route he could take."

A strong clear voice came back over the line to Weston's ear as soon as he had stopped talking. There was no doubt it was the Captain, his commander, Captain Kelly. "Major Weston you're the commander of all our ground forces. What do you think? I have my own opinion, and if we were at sea. I think, I have a good idea on what to do, but this is way outside of my experience level or subject. So give it to us straight Major what do you think we should do. I don't want you to tell us what you think we want to hear. Just give it to us straight, please." Captain Kelly did not have to tell Major Weston that he was not talking about the Colonial the scouts that were supposed to be escorting in.

Major Weston was thinking quickly but he already had an idea that he had been working on for weeks. Three of his ideas he already was to the point that could be the bases of an operation plan, on what he thought should be done. With the confirmation of what the cylons had done and were capable of doing. He mental had already settled on one plan. It was the most risky plan, but when you are put into corner, sometimes all you could do is one thing.

Mike Weston let out a bit of the breath he did not notice he was holding. "War on this scale, is not a normal operation for me Gentlemen. I don't know if we can win or win but not be in anything like good shape afterwards. That is after the smoke clears, and the bodies started to cool. In this case of war, and against this enemy. I think we are dead no matter what we do. We have to decide if we are we going to die on our feet, or on our knees? I know what way I want to leave this life. And it's not going to be passing quietly in the night. I can tell you that, without a doubt."

Mike Weston stopped talking, and he hoped that his words were carry the weight he needed them to the people on the other side of planet. When no one replied to his statement, he started talking again but his voice cracked a little under the emotional load. "These Cylons are all about going after the terror, and genocide options on the battlefield first and foremost. All other options seem to be ignored or they just don't care. We know as a fact, that if you take one cylon out and it does not matter if it's a Centurion, Human form Raider or Heavy Raider. They all can down load normally into a fresh body or hull, learning after each failure that caused their destruction. We now have a second set of reports, which point to ION based weapons interfering with this particular process. The POW has told me that the local cylon commander is very worried about cylons not being able to download after being lost in combat." Mike was rehashing a few points, but they were all points that they should have known. Mike had learned long ago never to assume information like that, so he used this time to review the back data to support his primary idea.

An evil smile crossed Weston's face and it stayed there for some time. "It would seem that the very real idea of dying. Is disturbing to them as a whole, very disturbing in fact from what we found out from our prisoner. I would like to pass along an information request from the Colonial's in that compound of theirs. I want them to find out what the Cylons know after this last battle we had with their ground forces. We were forced to use any and all weapons, which we happened to have at hand. That was just to counter our lower numbers on the battlefield compared to the attacking force. If we can get some hard intelligence, on what is affecting this down load process? It will give us more weapons of terror, which we can then use against them more aggressively." Major Weston stopped talking and waited again, this time he wanted some kind of reply from the people on the other end of the copper line. And again this time the pause was long, so long in fact. That Major Weston started to get concerned that the copper line might have been cut, or otherwise lost contact with the far away settlement in Safe Port Bay. He kept waiting and waiting only listing to the static coming down the line to him. Then he heard a loud click on the line, and the voices started again to cover the back ground static that was ever present on the line. Major Weston felt his face flush with anger as he realized what had happened to him. He now knew, that he had been put on mute. That was something that had never happened to him before. He had heard about it from other commanders that this had happened to, before coming to this cold planet. Before he said something he might regret a little voice in his mind told him to wait just a little while longer. He was now back involved in the conversation, with the far away leadership. That was more important than his ego.

"The Captain" was speaking again and the voice was not tired but seemed to be fighting a surge of anger. "Sorry about that Major Weston. We had to put you on hold, while we took care of something ourselves. What I want from you, is to tell us exactly. What are you, as the overall ground force commandeer are recommending. As your recommended course of action? This is going to be put in the official records, and I don't' want some armchair general or political hack poking holes in your statement to us later on down the road."

It was out of Mike's mouth before he knew it, and it sounded like a stranger talking to Mike's own ears. "War!" was the one word response from Major Weston, to what he had been asked by what amounted to the highest ranking person in his chain of command. Now he waited again for the leadership on the other end of the communication line to reply to what he had said. When they did not, in what he thought was a good enough length of time. He add some more of his feelings to why he had suggest they go to war with the cylons. "All-out war and total war is the only thing, that I think will get through to this human form called John or other that think like him."

After a few seconds of static on the line, a voice came back. "We agree with you Major. We are going to War, it is going to be total war if we have to. You now have enough rope to hang yourself. Please don't. I would hate to have to try to find your replacement from the few of us on this mud ball. We will ask for volunteers from our end, and start sending them out to you as fast as we can." Captain Kelly stopped talking for a handful of second. When his voice came back over the line, the anger was gone. It sound… tired or maybe resigned was a better description of this tone. "What else do you need from our end? Can you give us an idea of how you are planning to execute this… war?"

Major Weston pulled out his little notepad from his uniform jacket pocket and reviewed a few notes before speaking again. The ball was in his court and if wanted something he had better ask for it now. Before someone else did, after all it was not like they could make more of the high tech weapons or ammunition. "What I would like to do is start running more operations on their patrols or as we call it in the military. The Counter Reconnaissance Battle, I want to start taking their ground based eyes and ears off the table. I will start with just use some of the same tactics that work on counter reconnaissance teams back home. I want to keep trying to limit the weapons used, to only those that are Ion based for as long as I can. I'm would like to have more of them sent out to me, so that I can make sure those are the primary weapons used against these cylons. This will mean that I will need an increase supply of charged E-Clips of all types that I can keep as quick resupply. I also need two of the 100 round boxes of rail gun rounds. That is to cover and replace what we just used in the last battle with the cylons. It will also give me a little extra as a backup supply for emergency. If you can swing it, it would be better if you can send me four boxes or just two of the support creates out. Also can one of the portable recharge station be sent out to me? That would cut down on me sending spent E-clips all the way back to you to recharge, and then you all sending them all the way back to me."

Weston stopped talking for a handful of heart beats, before he went on to his next items that were on his little list. "Next I would like your permission for something that I have been pushing up to you these last few days. We to have some Colonials living with us, and they have been working very well with our people on site. I know some will want to fight, but we need weapons and some body armor for them. That is the only way, which I see for them to have any worthwhile battle field effect in this conflict. I would have liked to work them into our teams that are going to be doing the early stages of fighting." Mike stopped talking for a second, then shock his head that no one could see. A down side to his plan of operation had popped into his head just as he was talking about it. "But with the language barrier, I don't see how we can do that jest yet. I would also like to start smuggling more supplies into the camp. I think, I want to wait to see what their leadership has to say about it first. I would like to start stockpiling the items we talked about before, here in my camp."

Weston was about to change the subject, then at the last second changed his mind again. He was not sure he was going to cross any line or not, but he wanted to know now before it went too far. He had one key in his battle plant that he had been thinking about since he had left Kathy's tent. "The Cylons like to use terror as a weapon so much. I would like to give them a taste, of what its' like when they are on the receiving end of a weapon like that. I have a few rough ideas on how to do this, and I want a free hand to do it as I see fit. Do any of you all have any suggestions, or if any ideas come up. Please pass them along my way. I, as the military commander will decide if I will use any ideas. It they are orders please make that clear. You never know what might be useful, and I thank that the more minds working on this problem the better we will be in the long run. I just will have to keep them within reason"

A second new voice came down the copper line, that this time was female. The major thought it might have been Sophia Ryan, but he was not for sure about that. He had not talked to her that much since taking he job as ground force commander. "Major I would not have that many plans that require having any support at all coming from the Colonials. At least not any time soon, maybe that will change in the near future. We are working on something back here, but don't know if it will pan out. I don't think that we want to put that card on the table, just yet. That is if we don't have to."

Captain Kelly came back on the line as the dominant voice coming to Weston's ear. "When you need stuff let us know, but try to give us a few option if you can. I have already made a note that we will be raiding the supply locker for any older style body armor to send you. Anyone who is fighting with you actively, we want covered as best and effectively as we can. If you send stuff into the camp? Only send the crap, if you know what I mean. We don't want the enemy to get its metal hands on anything, they might be able to use against us later."

Weston smiled, even if it was not going to be seen by those on the other end of the phone. He could not help himself. "Yes Sir I was thinking the same thing. Their military ground equipment looks like crap, compared to ours. But we don't know what their manufacturing capabilities are in the local are or even close by. I also do not know, how well developed their reverse engineering skill may be. After all we know that both parties have space ships, and can travel between the stars. They have to have some tricks up there sleeve. That we have not thought of or developed yet. It would suck, if we found out that they do not know how to make heavy damage man portable weapons. Then we somehow give them the edge, because they picked up something we dropped on the battlefield. Or that we did not hiding, quite as well as we think we are. They might have a magic machine that they can just dump a new weapon on, and in a blink of an eye. They are making copy after copy of the new weapon to use against an enemy. We need to fight a guerrilla type of warfare, only engaging in combat on our terms and not the enemies. That is unless we have to, or the reward is such that it is worth the risk."

Joe Kittenger very distinctive voice came on the line, almost as soon as Major Weston finished his last sentence. "Weston, any refined metal that you can pick up for these tin heads you're burning down. If you can please send back as much as you can to us. It would be very helpful to everyone back on this part of the planet. I know I don't have to tell you, how in short of supply refined metal is. Any re-refined maternal, we can get our hands on will be reuse well. It's not worth anyone's life to recover during a battle. But it would help out a lot, if you could send back as much as you can. We have a few defensive projects that this will help in"

Major West was running through half a dozen plans in his head again. All of them had two things in common and he was short that item. "Mr. Kittenger if you can find some extra cargo transports, and send them out to me. I might be able to help out with the metal issue. I will put the word out to everyone under my command about bring back any recovered metals. I think that you could just be offering current scrap value. That will put a fire under them, but not a bonfire were they get burned bring greedy. I will need an additional person to handle that, dealing with recovered weapons has taken more of my time that I thought it would. I know that we already have a small stockpile salvage on hand for testing, but what we don't need we can send back to Safe Port Bay for whatever use you see is the best fit. We could also use more hands that can just carry stuff, but can't are won't be active shooters otherwise combatants. Just please send the food to feed everyone good sized meals." Major Weston let a lighter tone color his voice as he referred to the problem that had happened almost a year ago. "They will be burning a lot more calories than normal, or they did in the past few years. Speaking of food, I don't know if the report has been sent back yet. I will double check on that, when I have some extra time. I think June Stapp has found some new things that we can eat, and are worthwhile in calories content department. The planet life is significantly different out this way, than back at the Bay. But I don't want to have to start shifting the manpower to gathering it up, yet. I know it's still early on allergies test, which is why I have not reported on it earlier. I would rather have my limited manpower taking out cylons instead of pulling weeds and tubers out of the ground. If the report looks good to you all, please send out a separate team to work that issue. I will try to see if we can get one of the Colonial leadership that is not working for the cylons out here. I do see that this will lead to one problem, which might be end up being a major issue. Gentlemen, I can handle the fighting and supply aspect of this war. But the political stuff is in your court Gentlemen, and so not mine. I like shooting and breaking things, I'm not so much into putting them back together again."

Major Weston could hear the Captains and others laughing about his last statement in the back ground, before Kelly's voice came back on the line. "Cheater! Can do on this end about the political stuff Major. Please keep us informed via data transmissions as much as you can. If that is all, let's cut this short for now. I know we all have a lot of things to do, and very little time to get them done to standard. Major Weston fight the war as you see fit, we will try not to second guess you on this end to much. I will support you as best I can on this end of your supply line."

Major Weston agreed and cut the transmission going back to these bosses on the other side of the planet. He looked at the ancient device before setting it back down into is holder, and took the ten quick steps to exit his tent. He had to walk straight back to the "Communication Shack", as soon as he was done using the communication's line. He needed to let them know he was done, and that they could resume working on sending data to and from the Settlement. Now that Weston was done with the meeting. It would clear the lines for burst digital transitions that were broken up into 300 word shots. It was the fastest way, short of a using the long ranged UHF radio, to send the data back and forth between these dispersed locations. Then again no one would know about the transitions, unless they were tapped directly into the copper line verses broadcasting on different types of radio presented. It was slow, but it was safe. And no one was risked taking the drive down the dirt road either to hand carry data. The time he was going use in the "Communication Shack" was about half an hour, which Major Weston would not ever get back. Most of the time was spent just hand holding two of the younger cross-trained techs that were on duty. They were too new to the job to be comfortable with only a few directions, and no positive reinforcements. Staff was an unloved job and having a good staff was hard to put together much less keep it together.

After handling that issue, Major Weston returning to his desk in his part of the command tent. He had a stack of paperwork he had to, and work on a detailed plan to attack the cylons. It was not enjoyable work and after some time he was lost in the work. That is until something brought his mind out of the paperwork and back into the real world.

Major Weston heard the two scouts, which he had been waiting for outside his tent flap. They were speaking softly, so he could only make out the voices, and not the subject of them. He could have taken the time, and use the energy to try to work it if he wanted to. But he just did not have the time or energy to do that today.

Weston but his electronic pen down on the homemade wooden desk top, and looked toward the closed tent flap nearest to his desk. There was no way he was going to get anymore work done, until this was done. "Why don't you two just come on in see me, ladies? I know your our out there, so let's get this briefing going shale we. I have a lot of paperwork I have to get done today." The tone that Major Weston used, was the same that of an irritated parent use against a preteen.

Robin, Eva, and the Colonial that Weston knew was called Jammer as a handle, walked into the tent. The very much warmer, dry, and not muddy tent. It was like they had walked into a high end hotel after the way all of them had been living lately. All of them had packs strap marks on their top layer of clothes. But they had left the heavy packs at the tents edge near the door flap with a simple loosening of their fingers. Weston could see that they might be full of goodies, but at this angle he was not positive exactly what they might be carrying. That was a different deal, which he would have to find out about later. That was one deal that he had a sneaky suspension, would not be cheap or simple to close.

"Well, they did deserve a good sized pay check" thought Weston to himself and careful not to let any sign of his thoughts cross his face. The pair of women had Jammer take one of the open chairs in the tent. Jammer more or less collapsed into the handmade chair like a balloon deflating. Robin pulled another two folding chairs from storage against the wall tent. She quickly set them up in front of the field desks, which the Major was using. After everyone had taken seats, Jammer passed the thin computer over to Major Weston, which he had carried into this tent all of the way from outside of New Caprica. As soon as the thin computer had left his fingers, Jammer pulled out a weather proof bad and passed a hand written note over to the Military Commander.

Major Weston looked at the screen, and also took the offered note and quickly read the information displayed on both items. It basically broke down to a very long list of items that the Colonials would like, but started with a few lines of interdiction. The top texted said that it was in order that the Colonials thought was most important to them. The last words of the text were a simple note. It said that they would appreciate whatever support that could be given to them. Major Weston typed out a reply on the small keypad, and passed the whole package back to the Colonial that looked like death warmed over. The odd thing that he did notice was that both of the scouts were reading the text he had typed out for the Colonial. Major Weston quickly assessed that the two scouts had become somehow attached to the tired Colonial called Jammer.

Jammer gave the other man a questioning look but started to read any way what the Earther had typed out. "We can give your people some support on most of the items on the list, but not all of the items. We would like to start moving some things in to help out your people in the camp, as soon as we can. Don't get you too excited about this, just yet. The packages are both small in number and size…..for now. They are only things that are extra, and on hand at this forward location. When would you like to go back into your camp carrying a load of these support items?" Jammer did some quick math in his head, and came up with an idea. He typed out, that he would like to wait one or two nights before going back. He wanted to get some real rest, shower, and some hot food. He wanted to do those things, before he was up to trying to sneak back into the camp at night.

When Jammer passed the screen back to the Major, he read it then typed one word "Agreed" on the keyboard. He did not return the screen but place it down on his desk, so that the three of them could see what he had done. Mike was happy that, one part of his day had been done, and it had taken a lot less time than he had thought it would at first. Now he had to work on another issue. For a quick second he wondered why dealing with own people was so much more time consuming, than dealing with these new comers. Major Weston kept one hand on the edge of the little computer in case he needed it again and quickly. He then turned to the look at both of the female scouts seated on the other side of side of the table from him. Weston gave them friendly smile, that he let show on his face. It had been the same one, he had been using while dealing with Jammer. Then he let it fall, and it was now gone in a heartbeat. It was time shift gears for his next task he had to deal with.

"I was about to send Rex or Max out to look for you all. I even cleared with "The Three", if you did not check in by dark tonight." Major Weston gave a raised eyebrow to the two scouts, and asked the question he thought he might already know the answer to. Just a touch of concern had colored his voice, which was completely genuine. "Did you run into trouble, after we all separated?" This was not a negative comment on their scouting skills of evasion. It was just a commander wanting to know if he needed to change any plans, because of something the enemy might have been up to in a recent time frame. Both Eva and Robin knew personally, and had worked with the Major well enough. To know this bit of information, so they did not get defensive of the question he had asked them. They would have however, preferred it if he had not asked it in front of a stranger like Jammer.

Robin leaned back into the back two legs of the wooden field chair, and crossed her long legs. Then let her head roll back and the palm of her right hand come up to her mouth. Then she added some flare and gave an exaggerated yawn, and patted her mouth with the covering hand. To her surprise, it made her a little more comfortable in the chair. It also showed the major, the mud encased boots and legs of her skin tight body armor. With her point made without saying a word. She addressed the question he had asked first. "No, at first we stopped because we all were just so damn tired, and needed some solid sleep. After that, we just kept running into signs of movement. We would have to stop, and wait it out to make sure we were not being fallowed or anything. Most of the time, we think that we were just noticing some of the other scouts moving around us in the woods. But we did see a few of the metal cylons moving around in group of five and ten. What the Colonial's called a half squad and combat squad. Also Jammer" Robin "Amazon" Fero pointed to the man on her side of the table from her. "He kept calling them Centurions, when we saw them. Like a Roman kind or that crazy town in Texas. We could not tell if any of the clone types, were out there among the metal ones. We decided that we did not want to get to close to them and find out. And no, before you ask, they did not seem to be moving this way at least the metal ones we saw. We did back tracked some of the groups, which we knew were metal units. Just to make sure of that and we were not walking into an ambush of some kind. Between that and all the mud out there, we were just running a little late. As soon as we made to the camp, we came here as our first stop. As, I think, you can smell."

Major Weston nodded his head up and down as Robin brought him up to speed on what had been going on with them after they had split up at the ambush site. It was light on details, but it did explain why they were the last ones to make it back to the Main support camp. This was as close to an official report that the two scouts would do. When they stopped telling their story, Weston was ready for them to leave because they did smell. It was just too bad that he was not done getting the jobs done that still needed to be doing. "Please stop by the operation tent, and tell them were you have seen these Centurions while on patrol. If you can also mark the areas were you think they working in, it would be a big help for everyone. For your information and you three are the first to know. The Triumvirate has declared open season on the Cylons, and there is not a bag limit policy right now. There is even bonus money for certain items, if they are brought back." He stopped talking and tilted his head to one side and little a little smile come to his lips. "That is if you two are interested. I think that you two have a good bit of change coming to you, already if I'm not mistaken."

Both Eva and Robin gave out very loud and rolling rebel yells. Those should have moved the fabric sided tent, from the simple fact of the amount of air they were moving with the yelling. Jammer about jumped out of his field chair in shock or died of a heart attack. At the wave of strange sound that was coming from the two women normally very quiet woman he had been traveling with. He did not know whether to run, or use the laser weapon he still had in his possession on someone. When Eva saw the distress displayed in the man's face or maybe they saw his hand moved a little closer to the weapon. She reached for the screen still sitting on the Major's desk, and quickly tapped out what the Major had said to them. She went into only a little bit of detail about why they were happy to hear the statement from the Major. Jammer quickly read the message, gave the Major a big toothy grin along with a twin pumping two thumbs up. Jammer did not start typing on the screen. He just said a few loud Colonial words to the tent top. About the only word the Major could understand was, "Frak" but the Colonial seemed very happy at what he had said to Amazon and what Amazon had told him.

The Major smiled at the other man sitting down, but was talking to his two scouts in his tent. "Looks like you three have been working on the communication problem, all by yourselves. I know, I don't need to tell you to be careful with this? We don't know these people that well yet, and this could turn out to come back on us with a vengeance. I think you have seen this story played out a few times?" Weston knew he did not have to say more on this subject. Every scout and team had been brief on the horror stories, of what had happened to groups who had trusted to easily and early. They always ended in with a lot of them in body bags, or just feeding the bugs with their bodies. The bad part was that they were real tales, and not made up stories to scare people. At least half of the people with military experience and a fair number of those that did not had added their own stories to the list.

Major Weston could see that they understood him, so he reached into one of the center drawers of his field desk and pulled out a pad of paper and something to write with. "Let's get your pay squared away, so you three can relax some or celebrate. First we have the reward for bring in a live clone cylon into camp, or at least turned over to me. Second you have the reward for bring in a confirmed contact from the leadership of the Colonial camp." He started to make check marks on a pad of paper, near words that only he could see written on the pad. "Third, we have the payment or a cut for the ambush, and the helping finding and loading the high value salvage." He had his head down a little then looked up at the pair without moving his head. "That is not counting whatever you three packed in on your backs. How would you all like to handle your payment at this time for what you are already owed?" He passed over the pad with the numbers highlighted at different parts of the page. He had listed an amount for each of the items with a total at the bottom. It was a very big score, and Eva and Robin were not done for the day yet.

Eva looked at the number and her eyes betrayed her emotions, and then gave Robin a nod with a toothy grin. The two scouts had talking about this repeatedly and had worked out a few things, so they did not have to say that much aloud in the tent. Robin looked back to the Major and centered herself in the high backed chair. Robin would stay the lead of the pair, and handling these negotiations. "We would like all of the rewards funds to be transferred to our joint account, back at the Settlement." This was not unknown to happen and a system had been set up to support this plan already. As soon as tonight the "money" would be available to someone back in Safe Port Bay to see and use if needed. "We have friends waiting back at the Settlement. They will be able to use that kind of balance, to move along a few projects we have left undone because we did not have the resources. That amount of capital will give them a great kick to start them up again, while we are still out here." As she was talking, the smiles got bigger and bigger on her face. It even reached her eyes. This was something that Weston knew did not happen all that often. It was matched by the grin on Eva's face, and the gleam in her eye made her dirty face very pretty. Most women cannot pull a pretty but dirty face look; both of these women could and were doing so now.

Major Weston was happy for them. He knew that they would be putting the funds that they had walked into, to good use. There were some of the people that had come to his planet, and he had to work with them. That would only put the credit away in a bank of some kind, and use it only as some kind of a score card to rub other people noses in it. What he had just heard about the money was important, beside that it was making the pair very happy. It also had the advantage of paying for projects, which would help the Settlement as a whole grow in the very near future. That is if Weston was a betting man. "I will have the supply team send back the paperwork, as soon as they can. It should go out on the next supply run to back up the data packets they will send later tonight. You might want to send a message to your own contacts, to let them know about your plans." The sooner the capital was put to work, the sooner he might have more support to fight this growing war.

Major Weston made a big show of looking around the two women, to make eye contact with the over stuff backpacks against the fare tent wall. "So now I have to ask. Where you three able to pull anything interesting, out of the ambush site. Before you three had to hit the tree line with the rest of us?" He had reviewed his notes and knew that he had asked them to get, but he had no idea if they had been able to do it or not. They had not been enough time for that level of management or oversight right after the ambush.

Robin gave a full but evil smile, to the Major and she had a glint in her eyes. "As a matter of fact we might have something's you're interested in buying off our hands." She got up and went to her pack that had been left at the side tent entrance. She had to bend at the knees to left the heave back pack with that much mass off the rough cut wood floor with her powerful legs. When she returned her seat. Weston could have sworn that the field chair gave a slight groan, with the added mass of her and the backpack in her strong and long arms. She pulled out the four Colonial Military pistols from inside the fabric carrying device on her lap, and placed them on the wooden table top near Major Weston but not within reach of Jammer. Old habits died hard, sometimes.

From a side mounted holster on the super strong rucksack, she pulled out the Colonial Rifles. The three rifles were each in three pieces or component parts, Jammer had shown her how to take them apart and put it back together. That had been after they had all gotten some sleep to recharger both their bodies and minds. He had even cleaned all, and repaired the one damaged weapon. With them apart in shorter lengths, it made it easier to carry without them getting caught on a passing low limb. After all it was not like the trio needed, the weak level of firepower that the Colonial weapons could produce. With the long weapon now put back together, she put them on the wood topped desk one at a time. Next she dug deeper into the rucksack that she carefully in such a way that Major Weston could see into. Soon she had pulled out the few full and almost full magazines, as well some lose ammunition for both types of weapons. It was not much, in the big kind of picture, but it was a good start.

Robin was watching the Major closely as each item was put on his desk with flare of proper showmanship. Major Weston was good poker play, but then again so was Robin. It was going to be interesting finding out who was the better card player today. From some of the hints the Major was giving her as the weapons hit the table top. They were in for another good payday if she played her cards right. "So what do you think about these little trinkets? Think you might be wanting to buy them from us?" Robin said with a way to sexy voice.

The Major leaned back in his chair, and smiled as he rocked onto its back pair of legs. He knows how the game was played, but he knows that she knew. That he would want them, after all he had order them picked up off of the battlefield. "I was hoping someone had picked those up. We were all a bit rushed after all, and I could not remember who might have been able to pick them up." The three of them started to work on a sale price for each of the prizes on the Major's desk. It went unnoticed that Jammer had taken the little device, which they had been using to translate the simple messages they had used so far. That was until he put the screen back on the desk, and tapped it very hard and loud three times. The sound and the motion had the desired effect on the other three people in the tent. Everyone stopped talking, and looked at him and the screen with its text on vivid display. Jammer's face had a tight lipped look of mild distress.

Major Weston took the screen and quickly read it to himself. Then he typed quickly on the keypad. He was getting very fast at doing this already with all the practice he had been getting the last few weeks. "Jammer we need to test to see how these types of weapons work, and what they are capable of first hand." Weston patted the Colonial military weapons on the desk top. "We want to know what we are up against, now that we know the cylons will use them in the field against us. We also need to know if we can supply you, and your people with new ammunition. Or maybe somehow come up with a way to reload the spent shells casings you already have access to. What about repair parts for them? What of our stuff, works with your weapons and what will not? Your people have been on the run for a long time, from what we have been told. Were we come from, Military weapons need a constant supply of spare parts. That is another thing we need to find out if we can make them or not, real fast. That is why we want them so badly, right now." Major Weston could tell that this Colonial was upset and Jammer had typed out a good question.

Jammer took his time reading and rereading what the other man had written out on the screen so fast for him. When he was satisfied he understood everything, he started typing in rapid fire finger movement on the glass keyboard. "Sir, we need those weapons for the resistance now to kill cylons! How can we fill both needs with limited items? How about you take one rifle and one pistol to test and work with, and the rest can be used somewhere else. The military grade ammunition is another item in very short supply for my people, even before we came to this planet. How much do you really need on hand to run all of the tests that you want to run? Every bit of military ammunition you used to test, is one less my people can fight with." Jammer was doing his best to get this military man to understand where he was going and more importantly the why of it.

Now it was a four way discussion going on in a tent in the middle of nowhere with over half of it having to be done both verbal and typed texted. The two women wanted payment for the weapons they had packed over the uncounted miles and more immortally. They had to carry on their backs, all the way back to the support camp. The scouts already had detail plans on what those additional funds to be used on. They had fallowed direction on recovering them, instead of more metal parts. Those refined metal bits, which they knew pretty close the value of. And they wanted a reward for the risk they had taken, just like anyone else had.

Jammer was looking out for the needs of his family, and friends, that was now living under the thumb of the cylons. These were just as simple motivations, as the two scouts had and the local commander had. Major Weston wanted to balance the needs of everyone. They ranged from engineers, to the weapons experts, and the war-fighters on both sides of the cylons lines of control. After a lot of work it was finally settled, and no one was fully happy about the deal. That was finally done and agreed to by the three different groups in the tent office. But that was the thing about making a deal, in this day and age. As Major Weston's mother had said to him more than once, while he had been growing up in shadows of Chi Town. The true secret to a good deal, was accepting that everyone in the room had reasons for their point of view. But you knew it was a good deal "when everyone walks away for the deal table, felling a little screwed over by the others in the room." It was more hours out of Major Weston's day that he had not planned on. It was the story of his life, since someone had set of a nuclear bomb in obit over this planet. When Jammer and the scout had left his tent, Mike made a note to start asking questions about the why the Colonial's has set off that weapon in the first place. Major Weston reviewed the details of what they had settled today on one last time.

The Settlement would keep one of the pistols and one rifles that was captured for the testing they wanted to do. They would also have one full magazine for each weapon, to include four extra of the High Explosive rounds that went into the lower barrels of the Colonial military styled pistols. Any Colonial weapons that were collect by someone on Major Weston's staff from then on. Would be collected, cleaned, and then turned over to the Colonials free and clear. The Colonials on this planet did not have anything to pay or trade for them anyway right now. Besides, they were already trained on their uses, maintaining and their support. Major Weston could only give his word on this deal, and it could be over ridden by his higher command. He did not think that they would, but they could if they felt the need to do so. He had to make sure Jammer knew the difference, and he seemed to understand the jest of the idea.

One surprising bit of information had been about the chemically powered ballistic ammunition. It had taken Jammer awhile and a lot of back in forth typing on the screen to get the basics. Now Major Weston and the others understand that military grade ammunition was very hard to come by in the human fleet. Jammer also told them that the civilian released stuff that they did have in the refugee fleet. It was not that effective against the main threat, the hard to kill metal Centurions that were the primary combatant of the cylons. The lower power rounds could stop one of those Centurions, but it took a lot of hits. Unless, that is someone got a very lucky caused a hit that damaged the hip joint or hit an already damaged section. Eva and Robin agreed that they would only get payment for the weapons and ammunition that was going to the Settlement's testers. The rest of the weapons and ammunition would fall under Jammers cut of the material and would not get any additional compensation. That was his payment for his helped carrying the other items, and for his actions in the ambush against the cylon ground forces.

To equal the missed pay from the weapons sell. The women would each get a bonus, if they agreed to escort Jammer back to the camp. Major Weston told them that they would also be helping Jammer carry the items he needed to get into the camp. It was almost time for the dinner meal when the three dirty people were getting ready to leave his office. As a show of no hard feelings, Major Weston walked to the dining hall tent and had a sit down hot meal together. He did not know it, but that simple meal between the four of them. That it would go a long way for some of the other Colonials in the camp, to really start to trust these strange brother humans. When they saw the highest military commander any of them had seen, breaking bread with one their own. It struck a cord and word quickly spread around the support camp and deeper into the forest.

######

While the humans from the two different camps. Where enjoying newly developed friendships, or at less a new since of worth and purpose in the forward base. The other large camp of humans that was nearby. Was not having such good energy flowing through it, right about then. Felix was using his limited free time to stealthy find out more information, about what was happening to the cylons overlords of the camp. Baltar was enjoying the company of some female in his private office, but that was nothing new and it worked as a distraction for Felix to exploit. It was not like Baltar was going to do anything, like working to make New Caprica a better place to live, even before the cylons had found them again. Felix had left the military, because he had hoped to be able to make a difference this close to the base of power of the planet. Now he knew that he had been very naïve thinking like that. Just like everyone had told him a few hundred times before he had made his move. That had happened when it became widely known about his plan and hopes over a few drinks in the ships club. He had no idea what he was going to be getting into, when he had taken the job with so much joy in his heart. You would be surprised how quick joy can be turned into something like hate and discussed. He felt that way even before things had started to get strange. Now Felix had a well-hidden hate, for both Baltar and the cylons equally.

Felix had been looking for a way to get out of the job even before the cylon had landed. Now that the enemy had found them again, he was able to use his "high" position to funnel information to help fight them. It did not take long for Felix to fall into the role of spy. Now it was getting harder, and would only be getting even harder to keep his cover intact. But he was trying to do the job he had volunteered to do. This afternoon was one of those times that he was not protecting the cover that his job provided. Instead he was focusing on finding the information he felt that he needed to pass along to the Colonial Resistance.

Felix stopped behind one of the grounded space ships, and waited in the damp air. He was watching everything his thoughts together, and to work on slowing his breathing down to a more "normal" level. This location was offering him protection from being seen by the cylons outside, and from LOS of the temporary building those Frakers had built. That ugly building also was watched by a few wondering human eyes, from both human and cylons heads. He could peak around bits of the space craft, so that he could see what was going on around him and his hiding spot. Felix took a few seconds to get mentally ready.

Cylons, just like humans, have different personalities. Some cylons were easier to work with, than some of the other monsters. Felix was going to try to exploit this bit of hard won information, to complete this mission that could get him at best…. shot. Felix slowly peered around a part of the spaceship, to look a little closer at the composition of the guards of the cylon controlled building. Felix had been around enough different cylons to notice the differences and noted them. He used mainly dents and scaring to identify the track the different Centurions from a distance. He was about to find out if he was right or wrong about that. Mother Nature is a hell of a teacher. She gives you the final exam before the homework.

Felix was satisfied with what he saw, and straightened his cloths as best he could but still not draw any attention to his location. He set his shoulders back, his chest went out and up a little, and he put his game face on. When he felt the time was right he started moving. Once he started moving, he was committed to his plan for good or bad. He had made it to the unmarked line were the Centurions would stop him. That was after he had taken about two dozen steps. Felix stopped just an inch shy of the line, and raised his voice to carry a bit farther than normal for him. He could live or die by what happened in the nest few seconds. "I was told by Baltar, to check to see if there was any more information about the attacks." His dice were cast. Now all he needed to do was not to die today. "I just hope this is going to turn out to be worth it." Felix thought to himself. He was watching red eyes tracking him, moving back and forth.

One seven foot tall metal machine was looking right at the human, with its one tracking red eye. It had picked up the vocal noise and it had forwarded the information, it had received to the human form in charge of this detail. The human form had been standing at the main door to the building they all were guarding. The Centurion knew its job was not to let any of the Colonials near the building. That is unless they were escorted by a Cylon human Form, or another Centurion. The Centurion had three options to handle this situation on file in its central control memory unit.

The first one option was to just push the meat bag away from the invisible line, but it had not crossed the defensive line yet. The second option would to be to use it's armored and blade fingered hand to rip the meat bag apart. It would have been a surprise some in the cylon community. That the Centurion was hoping in the dark part of its artificial brain. That it would be allowed to use the built in weapons, and turn the meat bag into a red and cooling pool of organic mess. If the Centurion had been more human, it would have sighed. When it had to go with the third set of rules, and notify higher command about this issue. The Number Six told it to hold fast were it was, and that it was on its way to that location to handle this to complex issue.

##############

Felix had always had a great ability to see things out of the corner of his eyes. He used it now after he told the metal monster, his often rehearsed lines of lies. He was also watching, what he now knew as a Number Six model cylons. It had been propped up against the main entrance of the building when he had walked up to this point in the mud lane. When the blonde headed female form started to move, Felix felt this heart starting to pick up speed of its own accord. It was a mix of things that caused his heart to start race in his chest. He knew he was doing something that could end up getting him killed for one thing, but the human form cylon was very pretty. And she moved in a way that just made a man do dumb things if he was not very careful. That was until your eyes made it up her amazing looking body, to the hair framed face. She was not a happy camper. Her eyes had a dead, and had an almost shark like look to them from Felix's point of view.

Felix was right, the Number Six was not happy to have to come out to see him. It was not the cold or the wet, which was driving her bad mood. It was because that she had been order to be on guard duty by one of the Number One's. All of the One's had been acting like they were the God's gift to the cylon race, lately. She had seen Baltar's little dark head puppet walking closer to the building as soon as he had made the turn around one of the engine sections of the grounded human ship. She had been hoping that the Centurion would scare the little mouse away, or that he would cross the death line. Then the human, would had been catching some cylon firepower at close range and she would have a front row seat to it. This Number Six had not picked a human style first name to go by, she preferred the just her build number. One part of her modified brain noted, that it seemed like the meat bag was made of stronger stuff, or just dumber than most other surviving Colonials. When the Centurion messaged her what the meat bag had said. She knew the lobotomized Centurion would not be able to handle the human alone, so she would have to be the one to do the job. Again, she was getting very tired of the One's and this planet already. She was getting madder and madder mainly because she could not work out how to get back to the rest of the cylon race. And away from this cold, wet and human infested planet.

The Number Six had known that human males reacted to her type of human form cylon in a certain way, and she hated it. But she could do nothing about it, yet and she was so glad that she had not been around for the early part of the plan. She looked down at the shorter human, and gave him a world class sneered that should have turned him to jelly. She wanted to let him know that she knew, he was a bug and she would step on him. If she decided to that, and she was thinking about it right then. "What do you want?" The tone was dripping with contempt for this human, and all of the other humans that were left alive in the universe.

Felix smiled up at the blond women dressed in black leather from neck to the toe of what looked like custom made hiking boots. He knew how to play this cylon, he had been studying this one for some time. Two could play this game, he thought as he mentally prepared to play his part in the upcoming dance of life and maybe death. "As I told this." Felix pointed at the metal machine not four feet away from him, in an off handed way to show the other cylon that he was not impressed. "I was sent by Baltar to see if any new information had come in about the attacks. He has had some reports come into his office desk in the last few hours. They are about something was going deeper in the wilds. The rumor has it. That one of your patrols ran into something bad, and did not come back in when they were supposed to. The President." The way Felix used the term, it was not endearing to the title or the person holding the title currently. Any more than if he had just stepped into a big pile of fresh Dagit scat. Felix had thought about trying to control that tone, but after some thought he decided to go ahead and use it. "Would like to know what is going on. He thinks, he might be able to spin the information to calm everyone down again. But only if he knows what really happened out there." Felix was now using a low tone to speak to the cylon. Just like if he was trying to hide this bit of information, from his fellow humans that lived in the camp. Just like you would have expect form someone, whom wanted to keep some information from being overheard by any humans that might be nearby. It was all part of the game, and Felix was playing his part for all he was worth.

The Number Six flipped her blond hair around not knowing that she was doing it. She was thinking she could turn him away, but he did have a point. A very good point at that. She knew that a lot of the meat bags had seen the only two ground transports make repeated trips into the camp. They had been carrying what was left of the cylon reaction ground force. What if the humans found out what happened to most of the ground bases cylons, before more could be brought to this muddy field? They might get frisky, and that was something that most of them did not want to happen, if possible. What if the other humans, started something? Then there was little doubt that Baltar would be in the line of fire, literally. Our so was the human form would have bet. It made since. That Baltar wanted to protect his own hide first and foremost above anything else. Baltar might only be a human, but even most of the cylons would agree. That he had a first class mind in that thick skull of his, if a bit mono focused on women or his own survival most of the time. The female looking cylon turned, and started to walk towards the nearest door to the cylon controlled building without saying a word to Felix. She made it three or four quick long legged steps. Before she turned her head to look back at the man over her hair covered shoulder. "Are you coming along or not?" She did not slow down a bit, and turned her head away from the human stating less than ten feet from the Centurion on guard duty.

Felix just smiled a little smile, and stepped around the stationary guard Centurion. He was quite as the two of them made their way into the cylon command building. Inside Felix's mind he was mentally jumping up and down for joy at how things had worked out… so far. Once the heavy metal blast proof door closed behind them, he just started chatting about random things. He had found that cylons could hear everything within a huge volume or area. An areas large enough that a news reporter would have loved to have had been able to do it. But they would automatically respond to the oddest things spoken, and you never knew what would get them to start talking.

When the pair had entered the main bay of the building, it was a lot different than the last time Felix had been there. Instead of holding one metal body on a table against the back wall, it was a large morgue for Centurions. The hulks of the machines were laid out all around bay, and in some cases they were laid in two deep stacks. Felix was trying to count the bodies laid out, but he had never seen this many Centurions in one place at the same time. Well expect on that day of their landing and the start of the new occupation.

Felix was speaking about the damaged cylons on display, before his brain could catch up to his tongue and stop it from moving. "So what happened to them? Did a training event got out of hand, or so thing? Were they able to download this time into new shells or not?" He pointed to a Centurion's main body with two complete sets of legs, and parts of another leg laid out on top of it. Felix wanted to know what was going on, and that tone made it into his voice without him knowing it. "Why does that one have some many legs? What are you missing parts or something for them?" Felix was talking again to fill the air.

The Number Six was not really paying attention to the little man walking and talking to her left, and one step behind her. She had been walking a little fast, to make the small human almost needed to run to keep up. So far it had not worked out that well form her point of view. She was only taking him to see John, so that the Number One could deal with him instead of her. She stopped walking like she had run into a brick wall, and looked to the parts the little human was pointing at. It did indeed have too many legs assigned to it's chest or main body. Quickly a subroutine came up with a believable lie. She was not even looking at the little chatter box of a human. "They are still in the process of matching serial numbers, so they have not been able to match everyone together yet." She turned to for the first time really look at the human beside her. "Yes some of the Centurions were able to down load into new bodies, this time. Soon we will know what happened and who did it, don't you worry about that little man." She shrugged her shoulders in a very human gesture, which she did not even know she did, but Felix made a mental note of. "I have not been keeping up on this mess." She pointed around the low lit Spartan room. "Why don't you keep up, so that I can get back to my post, little man?" Cylons always tried to end statements that put down humans, whenever they could.

She now turned at an angle, so that she could not see what remained of the Centurions or the human walking beside her. Felix nodded and took a step closer to the female looking cylon, before she started moving again. She then started walking towards a side door on the other side of the open bay, which was now full of only slightly used Centurion parts. They had only been dropped once after all. Felix could see light coming from a small square clear glass widow about head high on the door they were heading to with quick steps. When the metal door/hatch opened, it was into what was a good sized office space and not a bay like the one he had just been walking through.

John was standing next to a side window, with a lost in space look plastered on his old face. The glass widow was letting the weak sun into the room, and was providing light for the old looking cylon to read a report in his hands. When the Number Six slinked into the room he turned his head, and looked up at her. Before John could say anything, the other cylon started to speak to him in a tone that had him thinking about boxing the whole line gain. This was not the first time that he had thought about doing that to his line in particular. Caprica Six was at the top of the list of individuals of that line that had caused him a grief, which he did not need. All though Caprica Six, was not the only member of that line. That had been causing John a lot problems lately. Just the most visible one to him at the moment no matter what line the trouble makers had come from.

The Number Six hooked her thumb and used it to point over her shoulder, to the trailing human just coming into view of John threw the open doorway. "This one came over under orders. Because your other pet, wants to know about the trucks coming in with nonoperational Centurions. Baltar seems to think, that he might have to come up with another cover story for you. To keep the humans quiet, and under his control for a little while longer at least. If any of the humans smell blood in the water, they may decide now might be a good time. To start causing more trouble….for you. This one asked me, if a training exercise got out of hand or something along those lines. That is when he saw the bodies for the first time. What do you think? It could be useful or not." She stopped talking, and tilted her head to one side. She was looking at the Number One, called John, to trying to predict what he would say. She was also waiting for him to reply, verbally, to what she had said.

John felt his face starting to flush with anger at the intrusion of both the Six and the human called Felix. He was about to tell the meat bag to go run along, that he had real work to do. Then all of a sudden he stopped that line of thought. He really wanted just to wipe out all the humans, and be done with this race of organic waste products. But he had been out voted half a dozen times, every time he had brought it up to vote to the large Cylon body. If the humans decided to start causing trouble right now, or in the near future. He still would not be able to just burn them all down, like he would love to do. He did not have the ground forces right now to job even, if he wanted to. Oh it could be done, but it would require another heavy orbital nuclear bombardment from one of the Basestars. So it would be do able, but that idea was too ugly for most of the other human forms to let it happen again. John would have loved to given that order anyway, but he knew there would be trouble from the others for years if not decade's after he had done the dead with his orders.

This line of thinking brought him quickly back around to the idea brought up the Six. He had not thought of using a cover story. To try to hide the damaged material coming into the camp, from the other humans in the now human prison camp called New Caprica. John did not think of the Centurions as "real" cylons, when he took the time to think about them at all. So coming up with a cover story was not relevant to his line of thinking. After all who cares if you broke a few tools? John was in deeper thought now as he worked the issue, and new data points brought up by the Number Six. "But the human and the human form cylon had a good point?" John was thinking about this for long seconds, it was that complicated of an idea.

John was now really looking at Felix, and decide to tell the truth. More to the point. It was as close to the truth as John mentally could with anyone in the universe. Much less telling the truth to only a human. "We ran into whatever was taking out our isolated patrols the other day. This time one of our cylons patrols reported back about the attackers, before being taken out. I sent some more of our Centurions out to the reported site, to see what had happened to the first group. The second group found some human foot prints near the site were our fellow cylons fell due to weapons fire. The combat company fallowed the foot prints, quite easily for some time." All of this was true enough from John's point of view. He took breath, and made sure to control his face before he said more. That was more because of the Number Six standing in the room, than because of the human being standing there. "Somehow those reaction forces ran into more of your humans, and were attacked again."

John stopped talking, and tried to be as intimidating as he could over the human. And to his eye's it seemed to work, before he went on with his story. "I'm thinking about shooting a human, for each of my Centurions that was hit." John had been very careful with his word use. What he did not say was how many had been killed. Only that some had been hit by some kind of damage. "What do you think about that Gaeta?" The venom was now dripping from John's voice like water off a house roof on the first warm day of a hard winter. The retaliation bit, had just popped into John's head and out his mouth, before he realized it. It did however fit his mood right at that second. So he was happy with the comment as it rang in his own ears. After all it might make this weak thing lose his bladder control, and although that would be messy. It also would be very entertaining, thought John.

Felix knew that the Number One was trying to make him sweat, and if Felix said the wrong something the least bit wrong he might wind up dead. The upside was that Felix had expected something like this, and pulled out a comment from his metal index file. "If you do that? Then everyone in New Caprica will know, for a fact that they have nothing to lose. And they all will die trying to take down as many of you, as they can before they die. I sure you have brought enough ammunition to do the job." Felix did a slight flex of his shoulders up and down. "It's just that you might want to think about two things. One is what will Adama do, when he comes back and finds out what you did? Second thing, is that something on this planet does not seem to like you and your kind. If they see you killing defenseless people? What will they think about you, and your kind?" Felix let the "what if" he had just dropped on them to fill the air. Felix had no idea what these strangers would do if they saw the cylons slaughtering the people in the camp. But Felix did know Adam, and he had a good idea how the Admiral would react to what this cylon was thinking about go to his people still on the planet's surface. Felix and everyone else that had ever worked with or against Bill Adama would bet. That it would be….. more on the explosive side, when he did it find out.

John sneered back at the man standing his ground in front of him. "Adama is dead, or he has left you all to find this mythical Earth of his. Just like he did over two yarns ago, to rest of your worlds when we attacked you then. What is that old saying about a Cat cannot changes its spots or color? Beside what makes you think whatever is attacking us, would care what we do you, and your kind? That is if they are not your people in the first place." John was on the ragged edge of losing his self-control, and he knew it on some level. The bad part was that the two things this meat bag had brought were very good point, about not killing the humans in the camp. Even if he did admit that to himself, and he would never admit those facts to his own kind, much less to a human.

Felix let the human form cylon think he had gotten the upper hand in this story. Before delivering a comment he had used against Baltar, when he had said the same thing. This time Felix had to keep the smile both out of his words and off of his face. "Maybe it's because they have not attacked any humans, but only cylons so far. By your own commit, you still don't know, for sure, who is attacking you in the first place. Strange that bit is an't it." Felix kept any emotions from showing on his face, as he was speaking the words that might get him a case of the deads. He was on death's ground, but he now had a bit of useful information. There was a chance that Admiral Adama and by extension the Battlestar Galactica had escaped this system when the cylons had attacked again.

John was a master poker player, and he did not let it show that the comment had hit its mark square on him. Just as Felix had intended it to, but John's cylon quick mind dug up another counter comment. "Maybe they had killed humans, but you just don't know it yet." Now for John to change the subject and retake control of this interview. What you said about a training event going wrong, sounds good go to my ear. Go with that. Go tell Baltar the truth, but we will call it a training event gone badly." John turned his back again, on the human and Number Six cylon. He was thinking that he was done with the human, at least.

Felix was not going to be sent home with his tail between his legs, at not just yet. "Sir, the President needs more information than that. That is, if you want him to help build a complete cover of your actions with a story. He needs to know completely, what happened. Just in case anyone tries to stump him while he out among us, pitching you side of the story. You know, and I know that not everyone was in New Caprica when you landed, and they are still out there somewhere. What do you think would happen, if one of them saw what really happened to your force. Then somehow gets word back to the rest of community, and then they start to talk?"

Felix was watching the cylons closely, and thought he saw the one call john shutter a little only about two seconds after he had stopped talking. "If you give him the facts about the event, then he can spin a story to cover most of the bases. Even if someone has reported what really happened, and it somehow gets back in. He can change it on the fly, and make it believable at the same time. I don't think you want him waiting and checking with you, before trying to repair the original cover story. You know, and I know that Gaius Baltar is a gifted story teller. And he can sell whatever story he needs to sell. Just like he has done probably a hundred times before." Felix was watching "John" levelly after making his case for more information to what most people thought of as the leader of the cylons. At least on this planet anyway.

John was working all the angles he could see, and he was coming up with nothing to counter what the little human had said to him. He could not punch holes in the idea, and that did not mean that he liked the idea at all. After what seemed like minutes he had to settle on a decisions. "What the Frak, I don't have anything else going on right now. Let's go back there." John was pointing behind Felix, so he had to turn and walked out of the room. When John walked by the Number Six that was still standing in the one spot she had occupied the whole. She reached out snake quick, with her left hand to grab the Number One's left arm. She gripped it tight enough to get the other cylons attention, but it was not hard enough to be taken as a threat by John. That could have turned out badly for the Number Six, and she knew it. But that was not her intent anyway.

John stopped walking mid-step as the female cylon leaned towards his ear, and just before he could bite her head off she spoke in a low tone to him. "You might want to watch him very closely, John. He noticed that you have extra parts laid out near some of the Centurions." The Number Six let concern color her low toned voice. "Are any of Centurion body parts missing? Did everything get picked up from that Fraking field?" The last part came out, as a soft hiss. It was still quite enough. That only a person with cylon good hearing would have caught, what she had said to the cylon named John. John had already reported that all of the bodies had been cleaned up from the attack site.

John looked at the Number Six, then at the back of the human, and when he looked back to the other cylon that was holding his arm. He had an odd expression on his face, one that very few had ever seen on that model cylon before. The term would be called Poleaxed if he was a human. "I don't know. I will have to check that out. Thank you Six." John's eyes were blinking rapid fire as his mind went into over drive again. "Now that I think about. I don't know if each of the units has a common build number on their sub-component parts or if they have different build numbers. As soon as I'm done with the human, I will have the Centurions start to try to match up parts, and look into building numbers. Then I will send some back out, to make sure have all of the parts have be brought back to the bay." John used a tone of admiration in his voice for the next statement. Amazingly only very few outside of his own line had ever heard before today. "Thank you for bring this up to me." The last part hurt him to say, but maybe this one was worth watching, in a good way after all.

John walked out of the little side room that was being used for his ground base office, and into the massive bay filled with what was left of over a Combat Company of Centurion. John gave the human a complete brief on what happened to them, as they knew it. It would turn out later to be the closest to a complete truth, John had told anyone in yarns. John even gave a break down on the percent of the cylons that had been able to download successfully. He even broke it down to the per damage type, as best that they knew about it. That was a lot of numbers to remember, and for most humans it would have been somewhere between confusing, to just plain mind numbing to listen to them. Much less trying to remember then in accurate sequence of any length.

Felix was not most humans, not by a long shot. He had been trained to do complex math problems in the heat of battle. This was so that ships could jump the distance between the stars, and you would have to do this while in heavy combat. The school Felix had went to was both long and hard, with a high percent of failing out of the class. Felix had been in the top of his class when he had graduated. In other words Felix could do it in his sleep. And he was pretty sure he had done just that, at least once since the war started up again. That had been when the rag tag fleet had to jump every 33 minutes. While they were running for the cylon fleet hot on their heals, doing there level best to finish off the human race. Felix had tried to make some chit chat and small talk with the Number One. Until John made it clear he was finished giving up information. Felix left the cylons, and the ugly building that was there headquarters of operation.

When Felix exited the building it was now well past dark and the curfew was enforced. He had to ask the Number Six that was now fallowing him. If he could have a Centurion escort him all the way back to the Grounded Colonial One. And that it was due to the curfew on humans moving around the grounded spaceships, after local dark. That did not mean that people were not looking out portholes, or out of tent flaps to see who was moving around after the curfew had been activated. Felix could feel the hate coming from most of those eyes, as he made his way to the right ship with a Centurion off each side of his shoulders.

When Felix was drop off at the ship, the Cylons had been told to. He entered the ship threw the main entrance at the front of the ground ship, that had been called Colonial One. He was not being exactly quite when he entered the ship. But he was not banging around that much as he moved through the ship. He did go all the way through the ship from very bow of the ship, to the door that if he would have entered would have given him access to Batlar's bedroom. Felix put an ear to the door, and stopped breathing and tried to still his heart. After a few seconds, he could hear what you would expect coming from the letch's private room. He probably did not even notice that Felix had been out of the office, and off of the ship for a few hours. Felix pulled his ear from the door, and gave it a dirty look as he turned from it. He sat at the official deck of the President to try the feel of it under his butt and hands. He rocked the chair back and forth letting it creak softly at the side to side movements. It was a very nice chair. Not as nice as what the real President of the 12 Colonies of Kobal, had back on Caprica. That is before the attack had most likely burned it up with a nuclear fireball. It was only what they could find among the ships, which had survived that cylon attack. After enjoying the moment for as long as he dared. Felix pulled a paper tablet out from under the desktop cover. This message, if it was intercepted by the cylons. It would only point back to the Fraker in the back room, and not him. Felix was smiling; as he wrote the information out, which he wanted to put in the dead drop hiding spot. He was hoping that someone would find it useful and soon. He liked to think that he was important enough source of information, that it would not just be left sitting around under a bucket.

With the note done and folded into a small package. Felix wiped clean of any evidence on who might have written it from the desk area. He put the folded up note between the linings in one of his outer coat pockets that he could only reach, after standing up. Now that all of the important work was done, he could think about other things in the world. That was when Felix realized he was hungry. He soon found some food that had been left out in the conference room, and helped himself to some of what was left on the white plates. As he was eating something, that someone else had left on their dinner plate. He gave a slight head shake at the mental image. He had started to think about, how he would have stuck up his nose at some else doing, what he was doing right that second. Well food was hard to find, and you had to change your ideas on what was acceptable or just did not eat. When you did not know when you next meal might come, or how big it might be, or much less what you would be eating. You did what you had to feed your body, or you died like so many others had.

After getting some food in his stomach, Felix went back to the Presidential Office, and poured a large glass of Ambrosia from a set of bottles located there. He held the amber color liquid up to the overhead light, and watched the dark amber color liquid shimmer in the overhead light. It was not the best stuff he had ever had, but it was the best of what they had left in the fleet. Felix pulled the glass back to eye level, and poured a quick measure back into the decanter. He took the glass that was still almost half full back to his room. He hoped it would be enough to stop the dreams, or at least make them less vivid to night. It was always good to have hope that something good might happen with the dreams that you knew were coming anyway.


	17. Chapter 17 Chapter 10 Gurrrilla War

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

Cylon ground order of battle… just made it up out of my head.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 10 Guerrilla War**

 **48 hours later**

Galen Tyrol was still shaking, but it was not because of the cold and damp air. He was having not just the hand and leg shakes this time, but the full body violent shakes. They were going from the top of his head all the way down to the tips of his old boot covered toes. Part of it might have been from the alcohol withdrawals, but that was only part of the root cause of his body shakes. Tyrol gave himself a mental shake to join his body shakes. This help him to force his eyes to stay open, and to put the fear aside for the next little bit of time. He had read about hovercraft before, and had even seen a few tests units. But what he had just experienced was nothing, like he had expected or had feared in his whole life. Before he could get his eyes to open he started think about how he had gotten here. The ride Rex had given him had been at night, and for some reason not being able to see that far had helped Tyrol deal with the hover cycle he had been forced to ride on. Tyrol needed something to focus on, and chose to think about, exactly what had lead up to this traumatic event.

Galen Tyrol had reported the leadership of the Settlement that he had a pair of communication devices built, and even a low powered and manual DRADIS system ready for testing. They had been both surprised, and happy that he had completed the work on those devices so fast. The first thing the three men had done after take his briefing, was have him taken to one of the ships small cabin. More importantly they had shown him were the shower room was located in that cabin. Galen had gotten so use to not being anything, like being even close to clean. That he had forgotten how much he smelled, to other people who had access to both warm water and more importantly soap. No one in the Rag Tag fleet had known how to make new soap after the on hand supply had run out. That was not a problem for the people who had come to this planet fleeing Slavers. When they had started to run out of the factory made stuff. They had just made more, it was not as "good" as the factory made stuff. But they could turn it out in the amount they needed in very short order. Besides it took the dirt, grim and smell off of you, what more do you want from Lye soap?

They had left him some different clothes on the small cabin, when he came out of the shower. The person who took his smelly clothes, had made sure to let him know. That after his clothes were clean, he could pick them up at any time he wanted and were to get them. It had been strange to him that the shower room only had one shower head and one sink in the small room. It was like he was in some kind of private high end metal hotel, even with the time limit on the use of the warm not hot water. When he left the room Dexter was waiting in a chair by the cabin door. Galen had been led off the ship, and on to the wooded dock it was attached to the ship and land not far away. The only stop they had made before leaving the water bound ship. Had been to pick up the three electronic devices he had made in the electronic shop. That had been were Galen had been given the bad news. They, meaning one Galen Tyrol, was going to run the test right now.

From the wooden dock, they walked all the way to the central cleared area of the Safe Port Bay Settlement. They had stopped at a small building, which had some amazing good smells coming out of it as a slight breeze moved under the massive green tree tops. It turned out to be a food serving establishment a lot like Galen had seen back home, well before the cylons blasted them to burnt dust. Galen was very happy that his escorts stopped at the small building. And they took over some rough cut seats at a table off to one side of the open floor plan building. This was where he had been able to eat something that was called Fired Chicken by the locals. He could understand enough of what was going on around him, to know that his meal was not cheap by local standards. When he had asked about payment? Dexter had simply held up his hand palm out, and told him it was covered and not to worry about it. Tyrol watched him pay the teen aged woman who delivered the food, with some off colored paper that was passed to their maybe teen aged server. He was rewarded by a kiss on the check, that Tyrol quickly came to the conclusion that his escort, Dexter, came to this place more than most. The man at the door had also seemed very happy to see Dexter. And after some very happy sounding noises they taken some open seats in the warm building. After a meal of hot protein, a fresh green salad, and thick sliced fruit. They two of them had to make their way to one of the gates, which would let them exit the protected area of the Settlement. The two men were able to communicate using the computer screens to the cover many of new words that were popping up. Luckily it was being used less and less and Dexter was thinking that very soon they would not need that thing much longer. It was soon after getting to the massive gates built into the protective wall. That Tyrol was starting to think that he should not have eaten meal with so much food.

At the massive gate two hover cycles with drivers were waiting for the late arriving men. The first thing that happened, was that the two drivers, gave the two other men. A quick but thorough class, on how to be safe while riding on the back of the cycles. The pair were also were given some, but not anything like detailed instruction. On what to do in case of attack or accident while they were on the back of the things. Tyrol was paying pretty close attention to the whole briefing. But he was more focused, when the pair of drivers went over something that might about how the strange craft worked. Or when they told him to avoid a side mounted motor, which would move to help make a given type of maneuver happen when commanded by the pilot. After the little briefing, Tyrol was given a hard head covering shell, which seemed to offer protection to his whole head down to the neck. It was not unlike the flight helmets Viper and Raptor Pilots used. He was very familiar with the designs, after years of seeing and maintaining them.

Almost as soon as the drivers had finished tying the equipment that Tyrol had made, to the sides of the two cycles. They were literally flying over the ground at a speed and very low altitude, that only Starbuck or someone equally as crazy, would have liked. Tyrol thought he was ready for this, after his first few times on one of these death machines. He was wrong, oh was he ever so very wrong about that. He had no idea, until this ride, how easy that his last driver had taken it on him on that run away from the cylons controlled area. All Tyrol could do was hold on to the chicken or "Oh Frak" handles, and wait for the ride to be over. Oh and try not to soil himself, or squeal like a little girl while the ride was going on.

The two cycles did not travel together in any kind of formation on even close together for that matter. As soon as they left the outer gate, the pair had split up in two totally different directions of travel. This was going to be a test, but for the safety of the Settlement and everyone else for that matter. The test area would be several hundred miles away for the Settlement, and not near any part of the protected Bay. The two hover cycles would also be several hundred miles apart from each other. This was to make sure the communication device, had the power to reach who they were designed to. It was about the only way they knew how to test the devices.

The test location had been selected because that both sites were both geographic different form the locations of the Safe Bay Harbor Settlement and New Caprica. The leadership and Tyrol also, wanted this to be as complete a test as they could get. Oh and not get anyone killed while they were doing the test, oh that also would be nice. While Tyrol was still trying to figure out if he was going to throw up or not, for a few minutes. After the hover cycle had finally stopped moving like an out of control Viper on turbos all the while in ground effect. The driver of the death machine Tyrol had been riding on had stopped, and was well into unpacked the equipment. It was like it had just been another Sunday morning drive or something calming like that for the driver of the death machine.

After a few more minutes, Tyrol was able to get his stomach and head back into the game. The systems had their own power supplies. Nothing much needed to be done for the setting up of the test of the thrown together devices. Tyrol did some quick self-test on the system, he had to make sure packed them out, did not damage them. Everything seemed to be working as designed, so he gave the driver a thumb's up sign with looking up from the device for long. The driver in return held up her right hand with two of her fingers crossed in replay. Tyrol understood that jester as meaning she was hoping for good luck on the tests. Tyrol held his breath, and pushed a button on front of the home made device. Now he had to wait as the device warmed up for a few seconds, before he would start the real test. It had passed the first test already. It had not blown up in his face after the ride it had been subjected to.

Tyrol let some breath out and held the speaker/pickup box close to his lips. It was do or die time, and die could be very much in the cards today. Tyrol used as normal speaking voice as he could, he did not want the stress he felt come out and across the communication device. "Four this is Six how do you read me?" Tyrol let the push button reset, after giving the code phrase had been sent. The transmission was in English, for the simple fact on one else understood Caprican well enough, to be helpful in this test. Now all Tyrol had to do was wait for Dexter to reply, or for those cylons Frakers to drop a nuclear weapon on his head. It was kind of a binary situation, if Tyrol had ever seen one. At this point. It could have been even odds on which of those two options would happen, in the next few minutes.

After what felt like an hour, but was really on a half a minute or so. A voice came over the hand set in Galen's sweat slick hand. Galen had only been around a few of these strangers that were from Earth but not from "Earth", but he knew that voice coming threw his hand built device. Galen could feel the air flowing out of his half open mouth in relief. "Six this is Four you are five by five. I am ready for Test part Two in Five minutes. Do you copy?" The line went quiet, and Galen checked a few read outs on his set, and then looked up. He was trying to look into the clouds to see if he saw any movement. He was hoping that he would not see a streak of light heading his way from orbit. That would have been proof positive that the enemy had also picked up on this transmission.

Tyrol smiled a little smile, and looked back down at the little device on his lap. It was that feeling you get sometimes but not that often. It was when something you have worked on so hard, and made only a few minor miracles to get it done, and then to find out it had worked. Even though it was against all of those long odds. The smile got larger just before he started to speak. "Copy, Part Two needs to last Ten minutes. Not eleven minutes but ten total minutes." That was his response to the team, on the other side of the out reaching device that Tyrol had made out of who knows what lying around the electronics repair shop. Tyrol looked over to the hover cycle a dozen feet from him. He then gave the driver another thumbs up, and pointed to the other device.

The hover cycle drive who was wearing a strange bone motif painted or highlighted hard armor. Gave Tyrol an answering thumbs up gesture to his gesture. She smiled then started to pack up the larger device Tyrol had pointed to. They did not want to have to be delayed if things went wrong, in a fast way. While she was doing the heavy lifting, Tyrol jump to the second device he had brought out to the test sight. It was based off of a half remembered design, he had seen in a book a long time ago back when he had just joined the Colonial Military. The device was dumb, and without much in the way of computer power. Tyrol was able to get around some of that with input from the operator, that being him today.

The device was only about four foot square, and had a set of turn adjustable knobs mounted on one side of the device. Tyrol was watching the only screen that was mounted on the top of the homemade device as he made slow twist of the black round knobs. The screen had come from an oscilloscope that was extra in the little shop, he had been working in. Tyrol ran each of the two dials from the lowest to the highest setting by turning first clock wise, and then counter clock wise again. He would back track sometimes, and make a few notes. Then he would move on with his test all the time not saying a word to the outside world. When Dexter had run out of the agreed upon test time, Tyrol keep going. He was checking the readout against his notes, he had taken during the first part of the test time. He was making sure it was the most complete test, he could do. Even if he had very limited and mostly homemade equipment.

Even though Tyrol was heads down over the device he had handmade. Tyrol could see that the hover cycle driver was started to fidget more. She was just few feet away from him, but she was shifting her weight from side to side. They were not running behind, according to the schedule she had been briefed on. It was just that sitting around doing nothing obvious. Just was not something she was used to doing, or liked doing for that matter. She was more into moving at high speed and very low to ground kind of thing. Maybe even while her hair was on fire or something like that. She had the first device already tied down, and sat on the main seat of her ride before Tyrol was done with part two of the test. She had her arms crossed watching, and tapping her right toe on the wet ground in a steady dumbing beat that made no noise in the wet grass. She also was shifting her weight between her feet that were lightly touching the ground. The last part she had no idea she was doing, it was just a nervous habit, and she did not know she had.

What Tyrol did not know was that she was trying to decide, if it hit the fan. If she would wait for the fat old man or not, before getting the hell out of dodge on her hover cycle. She was only kind of watching him out of the corner of her right eye. When she saw him move in a different way, than he had before. The new movement, got her attention. The stranger stood up made a groan, and with one of his arms moved to push in a little on the small of his back. This was the universal sign of an old person having spent too much time hunched over. He said something to the wind, but all she caught was a word that sound like "Frak" to her ears. When they made eye contact she tilted her head to one side, with a questioning look. He gave her another thumbs up, and she smiled back at the stranger. She was now quickly moving, and makes the quick steps necessary to reach the other device.

From the time of the thumbs up, to the time they were burning as fast as the hover cycle could go, under the green topped trees. All of this was done in less than two minutes in total time. That was much to the detriment of the Tyrol stomach, head, and the rest of his body. As he was thrown about the rough riding machine, all the way back to the wooden dock. The driver was not sparing the horses as the driver fled the scene of the test. Galen was slammed back and forth on the isolating machine, as she raced from the exposed area of the test, to the hoped for safety of speed and the covering tree tops over there head all the way home.

When they had finally made to a safe stop they were on the wooden dock next to one of the ships. And Tyrol had to take about fifteen minutes to recover from emptying his stomach into the water at the edge of the dock. Dexter gave him a large glass of fresh fruit juice with an orange color and seemed not to have been bothered by his ride from his testing site. Tyrol had wanted to be a Viper pilot, when he was a younger man. Just like most other boys and girls about that aged, but he could not pass the physical, reflex test or weight limit for that matter. That had been when he should have been in his prime physical shape. Now he knew without a doubt, that he did not ever want to strap on one of those things on ever again! He still wanted to know how all these new things worked, and were made among half a hundred other questions. But now he sooo never wanted to drive something like a Viper, or something like one of those death cycles. That he had just gotten off of, and he was so very happy that the ride was over. Dexter seemed to have understood how Galen was feeling, and took pity on the other man on his knees trying to heave up his toe nails form the inside out. After Galen had drunk the soothing drink, he needed a few minutes to be of any use for the next tasks he was required to do today.

The two men unloaded the pair of hover cycles with the help of a pair of smirking drivers, and carried the equipment back to the work shop deep in the modified warship. The jobs of the cyclist were done, and were off like a blur as soon as the last box hit the wood top deck. They both went back up the long wooden dock, and disappeared behind the huge trees more a blur of movement that a physical form. After they had put the hand built boxes on the few empty spots on a table in the repair shop. Dexter and Tyrol had to write up all of the reports, before they could have a break of any length. Both men hated doing reports, but they also knew that they had to do it. They were able to have lunch brought down to them, because one of the shop workers felt sorry for them if for nothing else. As soon as each of the men finished their reports, it was sent directly into the ship's mainframe computers. What they did not know was that not ten minutes after they were done with the reports. They were being read by the leaders of the Settlement, with great interest.

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The three leaders of the Settlement that was made up of people from Rifts Earth. Where reading the reports, and comparing the different reports that they had already seen from other sources. The reports had good news and bad news from the different points of view of both the writes and whoever might be read them. It would only really matter how the information was used, in the end. If the information was good or bad. The only civilian of the leadership, Max, was the first to comment on the reports. "So we should be able to use our radios again. If I'm reading this reports right?" He tapped the computer screen with his left pointer finger, as he looked around the wooden table. Then he looked down to find the line he was wanting to refer to. "The only way it will be picked up, is as back ground interstellar noise of some kind. That's something right?"

The Captain on the Neptune was reading two different reports from his own screen. But he was thinking about how to use what the reports contained to its best advantage, of the people that he was one of the leaders of. "Yes for some time, maybe. But I don't want to rely on it in the future do you? I would also not be counting on someone, not noticing picking up human voices on the radio wave bands. If we do wind up using our Radios again, in any wide scale way. We will still need to use burst transmission modes, and codes, so that voices won't be picked up, hopefully. I think we need to still keep security as one of the primary drivers in operations." Kelly looked around the room at the other two men, and Kelly's voice went flat with dread. "I think that we need to protect, those who cannot protect themselves.

The other leader and fellow ship's captain named Bob, looked at the other Ship's Captain. "You know? That is how we would work it. That is if we were on the other side of this problem, and we were the attackers. It is just like how we would do it back home when we are hunting pirates or avoiding them. We would just be quite and listen to radio, and find out what we could pick up. I agree that we need to operation security very tight, for now on the use of radio." Bob stopped talking and was lost in thought for a second and then changed the topic. "What do you think about the device to contact their warships or one of the other spaceships that took off? Do we use it? Do we think they would be helpful in any way that would make it worth the risk?" Bob was looking around the table and look on his face matched the tone in his voice.

The only non-ship's captain on the board, and the only one who did not have combat experience, on the leadership council looked around the table. Max did not have a smile on his face, and his forehead was wrinkled in deep thought. He thought about what he was going to say, hard before he opened his mouth. "I think it's worth the time to have one of their types of communication system set up, and monitored at all times. I also think we should set up a radio station half way between the Colonial or these Cylon patrolled areas and us. Maybe off set it by a bit, so it's not on direct line between us." Max stopped talking and looked back down at the computer screen at his fingers, and thought for a longer minute. "I bet that these cylons might be able to pick up the transmission of the Colonial systems. It would be a diversion of our limited combat forces, but if we could set something up. You know, so that if any bad guys did show up to one of the two different types of communication satiation. That way they would have a warm welcome to neighborhood, maybe if we do it right. It could be downright hot even, if can play our cards right."

Captain Kelly looked around, and stops to look at Max with a level gaze. He agreed with what Max had said, it was a good idea about the ambush idea. It sound like a good idea to him, but it was just a little outside of his expertise in ground combat. He started to shake his head in agreement. "We can pass it along to Major Weston, but this is a military matter. And the ground force commander needs to have input on any ideas that we come up with." Kelly saw Max's shoulder slump a little as what Kelly had said sunk in. "Max, I voted yes on this idea, but I think the veto should be up to the military commander's call. He is the expert in these types of mission, and we don't want to pull troops from him. That he could use better somewhere else, other than just sitting around a hut on a hill top somewhere. They could be out of plan for days or even maybe weeks." Kelly let his voice get lighter at the end to take any sting out of them.

Then Kelly looked around the table and the other two men nodded in agreement. "Now on a different note. We should be getting the first loads of battlefield salvage soon, into town. What are some of the areas we can put it to use, for the most benefit?" The rest of the meeting was spent on how best to use the expected first load of metal and the any fallow on items that were picked up. That was due into the Settlement, and a list of other issues that always needed looking after before something fell apart. In other words, the rest of the meeting went about like every other one that had happened since they had come to this cold world.

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Some thousands of miles away at about the same time that the trio were having their meeting. Major Weston was looking at the list, and amount of supplies he had on hand. He was looking back and forth between that list, and the request list that the Colonials had smuggles out. He was going down each list line by line and make decisions on each line. He had crossed off the weapons request right off the bat, at least for the time being. He did not want to risk high tech weapons falling into enemy hands this early in the war. It was just too big of a risk right now for him to want to do anything like that. Maybe later, some up to date weapons could be sent in Colonial inhabited camp. Then he remembered what he had been brief by Robin and Eva the other night in a private meeting with them.

It had been about how Jammer did with that pulse laser, during the ambush. He would need a good bit of retraining. In order to use a high energy power weapons, to hit anything at what they considered a normal combat distance with any regularity. The surprise in the sidebar Weston had with the two scouts, was that they had come to his defense when Mike had disparaged the Colonial. They had pointed out, that Jammer was not a "ground combat" trained person. Mike was thinking about what if, he represented the normal level of combat skills they were going to have to fight with? Weston was tapping his chin as he looked at the notes and with a grimace. He made a note to start working on ideas, on how to retrain the Colonials beside one on one over the shoulder style. He need a way to get at least small groups trained at one time and returned to combat. The training would have to concentrate on how to use the more powerful weapons the Major Weston was looking at letting them have in the future. It was when his eyes were moving from one list to the other. That he noticed something, that until that second. He had not noticed, and it had not be brought up by anyone else. It was a shocking oversight.

Major Weston stood up and walked to the only other person in the tent with him. Mike pulled the curtain that was half blocking his way, all the way open. And point to a part of the page that had hand written notes. "Rob, can you get these things from the supply truck?" Weston pointed to on line on the list. "I want you to bring them over to the weapons range." The other man started to get up, but Weston was not finished with his instruction. "I also need you to find that Colonial man that Amazon brought in. I want him and Amazon, if she can make, at the range at the same time. As quick as you can." Weston pulled the note pad back after showing the man what he wanted, and he had given the orders.

Rob did not like to speak in public, unless he absolute had to and there was no way to get out of it. He had a high pitched and whiny voice, which so far. No amount of speech therapy, had yet been able to fix or even soften. He had developed a phobia about speaking, and if he could get away with it. He would not say anything to anyone all day long. So when was about to turn to leave. He only gave the commander of all of the ground forces on this planet, a simple thumbs up and a smile. That is before leaving the tent, to compete his tasks he had been giving. Major Weston did not take offenses at how Bob had communicated that he accepted he Major's orders. Bob was good at his job, and Mike was not in charge of a formal army of any kind. He was more in charge of only a village defense force, a very large and powerful village defense force. Those type of people just did not react to things the way a "normal" military group would behave.

Major Weston was that much farther behind the other man, as he left the command tent himself. He had to get to the range to make some arrangements, that he wanted them done before Rob showed up with the items and people he had been sent after. Weston had just gotten everything set up at the weapons range, when a small crowd started to gather near the top of the small arms firing range. People around the small camp, were sensing that something was up. Or maybe word had spread faster than Rob could find who he had been sent to go find. You never knew about something like that, in such a small camp. Major Weston was talking to a small group of men and women at the range safety shack and noticed the growing crowd heading his way out of the comer of one eye.

Rob, Robin and Eva were walking with Jammer, and they were leading the pack of what might have been half of the total current population of forward camp behind them. Robin was looking around and as she got closer to the group standing next to the Major at the range safety shack. She gave the military man a sly smile. Then she pitched her voice to carry a fair distance, but was not at a shouting volume or anything like that. "So Major Weston, what have you got up your sleeve for us today?" She had an idea that the Major Weston had a part for her to play in this little show that was quickly developing. And she even had a good idea of that role he wanted her to play in it. She also knew that if she played her part well enough. They would get reward. It would not a payment or kickback, but she knew that Major Weston would remember them and if any job came up and fit their skills. Eva and Robin would be at the very top of the list of people offered the job, or even just offered the job first, before anyone else knew about the mission.

Major Weston just smiled at her, than played the smile around for the growing group of on lookers. Before dropping his bomb shell, just as he had planned. He needed to make sure he got the most bang for his limited amount of time that he had to give to this little show. He was glad that Robin had already picked up on that bit of information. He had always knew she was a lot smarter than most people thought, even after knowing her for a while. "Did you or Eva bring your little helper along to translate for our Colonial friend?" The smile was still on his face, and it looked as friendly as it was fake for Major Weston to use. Only people like Robin, who know him well would know that it was fake and only for show today.

Maybe in a move to let the Major know that he understood some of what was going on without needing that much help. Jammer he pulled the little thin computer out, without being asked or signaled by the two women beside him. Jammer then flipped it open the small computer, and waived it in the air so that the Major could see it along with the rest of the people, both Colonial and Rift Earther.

Weston nodded at the Colonial then held out his hand, to show that he wanted the battery powered device they were using to communicate through. "Good and I see that you picking up some of other things." Weston took the device from Jammer and gave him a slight head nod. Weston then started typing on the touch screen at a fast clip of fingers on screen. "Robin, Eva you might have to work in some of this after were done here. If he has any questions? I need to know, and answer them before you all leave again." Weston stepped aside and exposed what behind him. He had been intentional blocking the view and using the show to keep all eyes on him. It was what was left of a Centurion's weapon arm, mounted on some kind of wooden frame work, which was to only be there to keep it steady. It was aimed down range, so that people could stand behind the alien weapon, and be at least a little safer. That is if there was any kind of malfunction, which was the plan anyway. For all most of them knew. The cylon part might have a plasma warhead stuck somewhere in its workings, just waiting to go off at some appointed time only it knew.

Jammer was surprised to see the device, and walked up to the wooden frame that was holding the weapon on war. He was almost in a daze as he walked up to the weapon, he had not even thought to ask for permission. He was getting a closer look at the device and set up that was holding the evil looking weapons system. There were wires running off of cylon made weapon, and going off to one side of the odd looking set up. The wires were going into some sort of device about ten feet away from the cylon weapon that at first stumped the deck crewmen. Then his mind caught up to his body, and he quickly assumed that it was some kind of remote firing set up, and he was right. Jammer was shaking his head from side to side as the crudity of the set up sank into his forebrain. This was something that the Colonial military would never had allowed to be done this way.

After spending some time, getting the closest look he ever had of a Centurion built-in weapon. That Jammer ever had or could have thought, he would be able to have and live afterwards anyway. He was thinking that who or what ever had designed the weapons system had done a great job. Too good of job if you would have asked him. But the workings were clean, neat, and just had a very lethal look that all well designed weapons had. With a little bit of a start, Jammer remembered the little computer that the Major had passed back to him. It was a quick read, now that he was not distracted by the cylon weapon siting only a few feet away from him. "Jammer we cannot supply weapons yet, to your people inside the cylon controlled camp that you came from. One reason is that we just don't have enough of them to be that much good in here….yet. Our next supply run is days away in travel time, at best. A second reason we have for not to send them in for your people to use. Is that, you need to be trained to use them effectively. I believe you had some issue effective using one while Robin, Eva, and you were on the run. And lastly we don't want the cylons getting ahold of examples of our technology, and then reverse engineer them to use against us. What we do have on hand, is some body armor that we can send in right now. Our style of body armor has a different looking that what you might be used to, but it's still very good. But it will only work if someone is wearing it when they are shot." The note went on for a few more lines describing how good the body armor was expected to be against whatever the cylons ground forces might threw at it. It made for some interesting reading for Jammer

When Jammer looked up from the screen, and he had a quizzical look on his face, then it went to very concerned. That was when Major Weston held up what looked like a long, but not that thick looking tan leatherish looking overcoat, which was almost at what was called a Duster length. The Major handed off the coat to a youngster, which was standing off to one side of the group the Major had been talking with. The young boy, than ran down the shooting range with the coat flapping behind as he ran. When he reached the point he needed to be, he put the coat on a target in a preset location. The target with the duster length coat on it was in a direct line with the cylon weapon, and hand built mount that was holding the weapon steady.

Jammer read the note again after watching the runner put the coat on what obvious was a target. Then he gave a look of a man who did not believe what he was being told. The term would be called skeptical. Kind of like when you kid tells you he is going to pay you back from the money they are asking for. The overcoat was like a few he had seen on Tauron, and used by the farmers that had been near the base he had been visiting one time. The long coat would not have been out of place on some entertainment vid crime show, all with very a low budget, and bad acting on display. So now he was being told that the thin leather like coat, could be used as body armor. And it good enough to protect anyone form the Centurion's built in weapons. It was a line right out of a cheap novel, and Jammer was still not buying it even after everything he had seen of these strangers so far. He was about to say something off color but stopped before it even showed on his face. He was thinking. "Then again these humans did have man portable DEW's, which was just as wild to think about. So why would they not have cloths, that were bullet proof to cylon weapons?" What he did not know was that Major Weston had anticipated this mental problem. What if they could prove it to him? Because Jammer was going to have to convince others. That it was safe to use as body armor, and not just another layer to fight the chill and damp of this world.

Weston expected this response and waved for Jammer to fallow him down the range, but he was already started walking down the range. Weston could tell that the Colonial fallowing him without turning around to verify it. Mike kept walking until he was only about ten feet away from target that was in in front of the deadly cylon made device. Major Weston had a wooden post set up before the crowd had shown up. He made a show of it to Jammer of the draped over thin coat on the T shaped target. He wanted to show that there was nothing under the coat but the wooden post, this was going to be an honest test with no tricks. Weston had a small smile on his face as he did the little show and tell for the Colonial. He had a good idea on how the Colonial might react to what he was about to be shown and Weston could not help himself with the silly grin on his face.

Jammer looked over the coat more closely, and was not impressed with it from his limited observation showed him. It was a long thin coat that was maybe was good to keep the rain and a light wind off. He was thinking now that it would not be hat great at keeping the cold of this planet out of a person bones, who might be wearing it in the forest. When Jammer shrugged his shoulders, Major Weston gave a sly smile and point back to the firing line after the shrug from the Colonial. The walk back up the top of the range was at a quick pace. They were heading back to the waiting crowd of on lookers, which seemed to have grown larger while they had been looking at the target stand. It would seem that word was spreading quickly. Just as Weston had hoped it would. He only wanted to do this demonstration once.

Weston had one of the weapons experts show the three people he had asked to come out, and anyone else that happened to be around. The tri-barreled weapon on what was left of the metal monster' arm, and was the normal weapon they might see in ranged combat. Weston had made sure to tell the weapons master to show the ammunition feeds, and explain the different ammunition types that were known to be used by the cylons. The weapons expert was to point out what the rounds looked like, describe the differences, and how the rounds were loaded in the alien weapon system. When they were ready, and everyone was a safe distance from the weapon. It was finally show time. No one wanted to take any chances of the weapon blowing up in their faces. After all it had been recovered from a battle damaged unit, only few days ago. Major Weston had a down right evil grin on his face as he waited. It was almost time to put all the rumors to rest, and all it would take is a few pulls of a trigger wire that was jerry rigged to the three barreled weapon.

The range safety looked around group of people to make one last safety check, and to see if everyone was ready. Then he dropped his arm, and the weapon went off twenty feet in front of him went off with ripped fire explosions reverberating through the massively tall trees. Jammer jumped a little at the sound of a high cyclic rated weapon went about its business. It was quickly converting machine gun ammunition rounds into death. He had heard this type of weapon being fired before, but normally he was on the receiving end of the Centurion fire and not behind it. He would have flash backs for years after words, whenever this type of sound was heard by him and other Colonials. It did not take too many of those events to happen, before the survivors to have developed a duck first reaction. It was just that way when Colonials heard those weapons fired nearby or even not that close to them. The burst this weapon had fired. Was in fact about twice as long, than what a real Centurion would have used in combat. But this was a test to show the Colonial that the coat would have protected the wearer from the incoming cylon weapons fire. It was not a test of how the cylons might use this weapon in combat. When the weapons experts signaled that they had made the weapon safe. Weston this time sent Rob to retrieve the coat for a little show and tell at the firing line. He wanted everyone to see what had happened to the long thin coat under the hammering blows of the cylon weapon.

When Rob handed off the long leather coat back to the Major, who had slowly walked farther away from the fixed mounted smoking cylon weapon. He just moved aside, and out of the circle of people that quickly surround the Major still holding the targeted coat. Weston laid out the coat, on what had been a reloading table, so that the impact side of the long coat was facing the crowd. Weston looked at Jammer than found the woman he was looking for. "Eva you're the fastest at typing. Can you help me out with explaining some things to Jammer?" Weston only had to raise one eyebrow to let her know that it was not a request.

Eva took the little computer from Jammer, and started type and angled the screen so that the Colonial could see what was being said. She nodded back to the Major to indicate that she was ready whenever he was. "Jammer this is a light armor coat, it is a lot like what a lot of scouts back home use while on task as an outer protective layer. Hell, I have known half a dozen hover cycle drivers that also wear this brand of body armor while on the city streets. It's not designed to be proof against real heavy weapons fire from back home. From what we have seen so far from the cylons. It should protect the wearer from a few hits, even from the bigger hand carry weapon the Centurions can have." Weston gave a sly grin, more to let Eva catch up on her typing and so that Jammer could read. "We have seen the Centurion sometimes use but do not seem that numerous on the battlefield."

Major Weston motioned Jammer to look closer at the coat on display for all to see. "It should cover most people from the neck down to about the knees, and down to about the wrist of both arms. It's not going to be perfect coverage, but unless someone is very unlucky. They should be able to take four or five hits in about the same body panel. Before they had to worry about any penetration of the under layer. That is unless the cylons are using all Armor Piercing rounds or something that hits harder than they have put in the field to date." The sly grin was back on Major Weston's face and he kept talking. "Then I still would not want to take more than a hit or two in the same coat panel. What do you think Jammer?" Weston let his head tilt to one side as he waited for the Colonial to work through what he had seen and had been told.

Jammer was having a hard time getting his mind to work again. He was looking at the inside and outside of the overcoat on display, he was even flipping it open and closed a few time. He had seen what had happened to Eva's coat. After taking a bit of weapons fire when they had taken the human form prisoner. This was not a dream and it had not been some freak accident of some kind. These people had clothes that you might find on the streets of old Caprica, and it was proof to damage from a Centurion for three long bursts. That was something right out of a bad entertainment show, were the hero got shot up a hundred times and walked off into the sunset like nothing had happened. The best marines boarding units could not boost armor that good. His eyebrows where almost disappearing into his hair line as he mumbled. "Okay this can be helpful." Jammer picked up the long coat to get a feel of its weight. And was equally surprised at the lightness of the coat, but it was not feather light. It did have some mass to it, just not as much as he would have expected it to for even low ability body armor. He was expecting it to feel at least like police under shirt body armor. This was lighter than even that pistol grade body armor.

Without thinking Jammer started talking and looking in the general direction of the military man. "How much of this stuff can I take back with me?" When he did not get a response he realized he had forgotten something. He had to type that on the little computer, so that the Major could understand what he had said. It just showed how much Jammer was in shock to have forgotten that little bit of kit.

Major Weston just looked down little computer screen, and quickly read the note form the Colonial. He then hit a button to go to an area he had typed while he waited for the Colonial to make it to the up shooting range. It could have also been pulled from the camps connected information network grid. Jammer would not know the difference, unless he asked and his brain was not working at full speed. "Two things we first need to talk about. One is anything we give up, we will want back at a later date. Even it looks damaged beyond repair to you all, it needs to come back to us." Weston held up his hand when he saw Jammer read that part. The Colonials head had snapped up and eye locked the Major and he had a very confused look on his face. Major Weston hid a smile, and just pointed farther down the screen. "We are friends now, but we have a limited supply of things like this or of other things related to war and defense. After things settle out, we will need to have trade for both of our groups to have good long term relations together." That last part made since to the Jammer, so he calmed back down. After all, Jammer knew that the Old Man would not just have given someone outside of the military a Viper or a Raptor. Jammer nodded his head and went back to reading the little computer screen filled with text. His face fell when he hit another area of text. "We only have six coats like this right now. We hope to have more on a supply shipment, due in a few more days. We do not have a detailed list on what is in that supply run. We have to set up a steady supply route into your camp. Will you be able to help set this up with your people?" That was the end of the text that Major Weston had prepared for this meeting.

Jammer typed on the screen feverishly with two dirty fingers, and the screen change as he touched the different keys on the device. When he was at a good stopping point he passed the screen to the Major. "Why not use the cave Robin and Eva have found, and or the clearing were my people have been cutting wood for heating New Caprica? They seemed to be good enough for storing some supplies that is more forward than this base. Then they could be brought in to New Caprica as my people made their way back in forth through the patrols that the cylons are running in the area. Those two locations are close enough that people could carry larger loads, over the shorter distance and still keep hidden from the cylons."

Weston read the note and agreed with most of what the Colonial was saying in them. At lease he did, in theory. Major Weston started typing on the screen himself, he should have passed the device to Eva but he was in the swing of things as they were working now. "We will start moving what we can as soon as we can. However, I don't want to leave that stuff unguarded. So I will need one Colonial, and one of my people. At each supply storage site that we do end up setting up outside of your encampment. Do you think you can get help in enough numbers, and skills to help? If so, we will let them use a set of our body armor, and we will supply them with everything we can. To be explicit about the support I am offering to help out with. I'm also talking about food, water, shelter and weapons training on our style of weapons. This we will give to anyone who is helping guard those exposed supply points outside of the cylon controlled camp. If you need me to explain in more detail? Please ask, I don't want there to be a misunderstanding that comes back and bites me on the ass."

Jammer had a huge grin on his face that was only getting larger, with the more he read of the glowing text. His head shot up and said in passable, if very oddly accented English. "I will pass it along to my boss." He then typed out that he would pass along, that the Major could use more people to help out in task out here in the woods. He had no idea how, or more importantly who they would be able to get out of the camp right them. Jammer was thinking mainly, at least now they would have a place to go. That is after they had been able to avoid the cylon patrols and not be shot in there attempted escape.

Major Weston nodded his head up and down, when he read what the other man had typed out. "Robin, Eva, Jammer, I have to get back to work. I probably won't see you again before you leave, so please get with Rob before you pop smoke. He will have some supplies ready to take with you when you leave." He waved good-bye to them, as he walked away from the still thick group of on lookers. He did not need to make sure they fallowed his instructions. He was used to giving orders, and they were done simple as that. He had to get ready for the next objective on a long list of things that needed to get done before he could get some much needed sleep. He was feeling good that he had made so much positive progress already today. He started kicking himself when he thought that. Now he knew he had just jinxed the rest of this day. That damn jinx fairy had somehow fallowed the two ships to this new world. Mike Weston would swear on a stack of bibles about that little fact of life.

When he returned to his tent, Major Weston made a note and passed it to his small staff. It was to ask for all of the homemade armor that had been turned in, but not reused. If it could be sent out to him on the next high speed resupply run from the Settlement. It would now have a good use, which was in the major's opinion worth wild. The homemade body armor had three things going for it that appealed to Mike. First off, the stuff looked like it was homemade without any doctoring needing to be done to the crap. That would fit in with the refuges standard look, so that would match with what they were wearing already on a daily basses. The second thing, was it would also stand up to almost anything the cylons had deployed to the planet surface so far. Last item was not really that important, but it was a mark in the positive column of Major Weston's mental list. That was that, it was cheap. What maybe was the fourth reason, was that even if a few did get taken by the enemy? It was not that big of a loss to the people from Rifts Earth.

That was because they were not considered by the people from Rifts Earth, to be that good in the first place. If you compared it to what was first or even second line body armor that the Settlement had on hand now. The armor was even considered only to be used out of necessity or as a last resort. He smiled to himself as he had a brief flash of Jammer's face at the range replay in his mind. It would have been interesting to see, what Jammer would have thought of their second line body armor. If Mike would have shown Jammer. Exactly how much damage even those homemade things were designed to withstand. Weston would bet that even the lightest homemade stuff, could have taken a hit from one of the flying Cylons under-wing weapons. The ones everyone called a cylon Raider. He would not have wanted to have been the one wearing it, when something like that happened to it. But he thought that anyone wearing the stuff would live threw the event. Mike would have also bet that they would not have been feeling good about the hit, but they would still be walking the world of the living. Even if they might not be able to walk that well after the event.

Major Weston had no idea that the Amazon's group he met at the range, had been planning to leave soon, and had changed their plans when Rob had found them. It was just a case of good timing that had stopped them from leaving that afternoon a new mission. Jammer would most likely had stuck around the local base. He would be resting up, until he felt it was time to ask for help getting back into the cylon controlled human camp if Eva and Robin had not come back by then. Now with the supplies and clothes that Major Weston and the supply department had given them. Now that was not such a great idea. They were supposed to carry a huge amount of stuff. They soon realized that it was now going to be too heavy for just the three of them to handle by themselves.

In the end they would need to have help from four other scouts, to carry everything that was needed all the way to the cave the pair of scouts had found. Eva and Robin had not planned on using the cave again as a hide site for their own use. Since they felt that it had been so close to a site of a battle with the cylons. On the other hand, it did make a lot of sense to use it as a cache site. The creek bed would hide most foot prints, if the scout was even a little bit careful using the local area. That is if the cave was still a secret from the new enemy. They would just have to check it out when they got there and they might have to come up with a quick plan B.

After getting everything packed up in duffle bags and rucksacks, it was mind numbing work for all three of them. They all went to have a good, large, and hot meal and let their brains get back into a more high functional state. Then after that, they of course one last bathroom stop. The girls wanted to stop in a real bathroom before heading out into the woods again. Jammer was a little shaken after using the electronic outhouse for some time afterwards. He was used to a lot different device since hooking up with the two scouts and had a few issues figuring it out this one. This would top the list of problems he was embarrassed about, even with the voice activation modification they had just put in it. The now larger group, was gone into the wood line by the time the sun was at its highest point in the sky. They were not on foot this time leaving the main support base. Eva, Robin, and Jammer were not going to argue about begin able to catch a lift to start their trip back to the cylon controlled camp.

Eva and Robin had been able to talk Rob into letting then get a ride closer to the most forward Earther outpost. This outpost was simply called "The Campsite" to most people how knew about it. It was amazing how fast the seven of them made it to the forward position when you're catching a ride on a hover car. It was not as close as anyone of them would have liked, but it was a lot closer to where they needed to be and they were still fresh. After helping move some heavy items from the cargo carrier that had given them the lift. They were still fresh instead of walking and hauling the heavy load for a day and a half to make this maybe this far. The expanded group of overloaded scouts and one Colonial, only had to travel about fifteen miles to go to reach the cave from this location. It would be a push, but they should be to the cave they were looking for. Sometime just after night fall, or maybe just before full dark set in. The entire group was in good shape, and they could make almost four mph, even with the large load they were all carrying on their backs. That was good because after they dumped the supplies in the cave, it was still going to be along night for three members of the party. The four other people who had helped pack in the supplies, would stay there in the cave for the rest of night. They would be there as well as most of the next morning. They were to act as guards, and be the backup for Eva and Robin if they ran into any trouble that they could not get themselves out of. That is if they were needed. And they were supposed to help check out the nearby area to make sure that the cave was still a safe place. If the cave did not check out as being safe, they would find another spot for the night, and then all would start looking for a good place to set up the planned on cache site. The other four people also had their own missions to do after Eva and Robin had completed most of theirs. Like take out any groups of cylons that might be walking around outside of the camp, among other things. These things were items that Robin, Eva and more importantly Jammer did not need to know about. They might find out later, but tonight it was not that important to them.


	18. Chapter 18 chapter 10a Guerilla war

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 10a Guerilla war**

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The trip all the way from the drop off point, to the cave in the side of the creek banks was surprisingly uneventful. The group did not hear or pick up any signs that they were being fallowed, and they were not attacked along the way. The seven of them in fact did not see or hear any movement in the darkening forest, but the wind pass through the tree tops as they moved below them. They also did not see any tracks of any kind, which cross the route that they were traveling on. The group did not make it right at night fall to the cave, but two hours after the sun had set on this cold planet. The lack of signs caused the group to slow down to make sure they were not about to walk into a trap of some kind or function. Robin believed in the old adage about if things are going to well, then it's a trap. One scout and Jammer had stopped at the creek bed and they were acting as the over watching guard. They would stay down there, and alert for enemy action. While they waited for the rest of the scout to search the local area.

The only signs of occupation of the cave had been when a scout, that had been in hiding in it at the time this new group showed up. Had almost got himself killed when he made a noise to let the other humans know he was there and not to shoot him. After everyone's heart rate was back to at least a more health level and the weapons pointed at the ground. He reported that nothing had been back in the river bed or eroded creek banks, since he had been on site. He had gotten there only about half a day after the large ambush. So they could call it two days ago and still no enemy activity. He was recovering from a badly turned ankle after a trip over a half fallen tree, in the cover provided by the cave. Robin and Eva still took the time to check out the cave as completely as they could. They used both the visible and EM spectrum in there sweeps while one of their expanded number kept an eye on the limping scout. They quickly determined that it was empty, and safe to the best of their not so low scouting ability. Robin came to the mouth of the cave let the rest of the group know that it was safe. And to come into the cover and protection that was provided by the underground rooms.

While one group was setting up a position at the cave mouth about ten feet inside of the living screen made of covering vines and roots. The remaining group of three people were unloading and repacking their rucksacks for the rest of the night's activities. Which they would now, have to undertake without much rest. Jammer was not happy to leave his borrowed Pulse laser rifle behind in the damp cave. After all, he had been one of the few Colonial to have ever seen much less used a directed energy weapon in real life. He was becoming very attached to the weapon, and had even taken up the habit of stroking the oddly shaped Coalition States C-14 rifle. That is when he thought no one was looking his way. Both Eva and Robin had poked a little fun at him; about the amount of affection he was showing the weapon of war. When it was taken away from him he had no idea if he would ever see that weapon or another one, like it ever again. He was almost as heartbroken about losing that weapon, as when he broke up with his first girlfriend. He was hoping that he would not sulk for days after leaving the cave. He was starting to understand why Admiral Adama had been so attached to that old Viper of his.

To replace the scary high tech rifle, he now have a Colonial military rifle and what looked like a Colonial made pistol on his hip. He even had an amount of ammunition on him, that he had not seen given out before in a very long time. Like since the last he had been at the qualification range, before the cylons decided to pay his home world a visit of the nuclear kind. He would be able to split his current ammunition load between two different people when he got back into the camp. And he would still have more rounds of ammunition, than someone on guard duty. Even if that someone had been on duty on one of the two Battlestars, for the last year or so.

With the three packs re-packed and unneeded items left on dry parts of the cave floor. The three of them had a cold meal to fuel up their bodies for the next part of the trip. Jammer did not have the heart to tell the pair, when they kept apologizing for the low quality of food they were giving him. That he had not eaten this well in years and months since the cylon attack. Very few words were spoken after they accepted the fact that he was okay with the food, because words were not needed. After they had all eaten and cleaned up their area a little enough for their mental state. Robin checked in with the group that was going to stay behind in the cave system. This had to be done before her, her friend, and the Colonial made their way out of the cave, and back into the damp and cold night air of the creek bed. The three of them were only taking the items in there packs, which were going to be left behind for the Colonials to use. They were planning on that the trip back was hopped to be faster, than the trip into the field of grounded space ships was going to take them. It might have been false hope, but it was always good to have something to hope for.

Jammer was getting used to having all of the high tech and strange goodes, his new friends had to use while on a mission of any kind. He knew that he was going to miss them as he walked up the creek bed. It was going to take all three of them to carry all of the supplies back to the people who needed it, and deep down Jammer knew it was not that much. Not when you think that it was going to have to be spread out over 40,000 people. After they made their way up to the top of the steep creek bank, Robin stopped them. She helped Jammer put the camouflaged blanket on so that it covered him more effectively. He was again the middle man position of the group, as they made their way slowly towards the cylon guarded Colonial camp in a dark overcast night. The scouts were better at this kind of work than a wrench turner that had worked on a Battlestars deck. They leveraged these skills to full effect, so they did not have to low crawl like Jammer had to do. That had been when he was leaving the cylon controlled camp a few days ago. It was a lot faster, and with so many eyes looking around the area sneaking up on them would be problematic. So when a cylon patrol came close, they had plenty of time to become just another patch of ground, rock or bush until they moved along out of the local area the three people were hiding in.

Jammer had lost track of time and how far it was to the edge of New Caprica. Or for that matter how far they had traveled so far. His area to keep an eye out on as they moved, it was to the left and right sides of their line of travel, of the slow moving infiltration team. He could not see any landmarks that he could recognize in the dark of this night. He had only his two trips and those experiences, to gauge what was going on around him. It did not help, that each trip had taken seemed like it had taken hours to move the distance he had to move. So much so, that was not until Robin dropped to one knee and waved him forward, that he realized. That they were under an engine mount of one of the grounded space ships on the edge of the occupied field. They now were on the edge of the field, which had been given the grand name of New Caprica. Now it was time for Jammer to lead the group the rest of the way, into what very much could be the Devils den.

Jammer was the only one who among the three of them. That had been inside the maze of landed spaceships and makeshift homes around them. And he still was very thankful for the night vision goggles Robin had given him to use a few days ago. Robin and Eva knew how to move and more importantly were to move to while they were in the woods and forest. That skill was of very little value in this part of their current mission. The women were lost in the maze of grounded ships, tents, and shacks, in less than two hundred steps from coming on the edge of the mud field. Jammer had originally planned to take them back to his shack, but after the second time they had to retrace their path. He had to drop that little idea like a handful of daggit scat. That was because of paroling groups of Centurions that had not been there when Jammer had left the area last time. He decided to take them to the school instead of his little shack he lived in. It was not the safest place to take them. He only had a choice of the school or taken them to the XO's place now.

Jammer really did not want to take this stuff and the two scouts to the XO, if he did not have to. It was not because of the XO or anything like he did not trust the grumpy fraker. It was because of his wife, which was worrying Jammer as they moved around the dark camp will after curfew. Jammer had not liked her from the second, which she showed back up out of the blue on the Galactica's deck. She was bad news, pure and simple. And Jammer so did not want to have to deal with that kind of trouble, right now if he did not absolutely have to. Jammer was sweating and it was starting to run down his back. It was going between this inner coat and the heavy rucksack on his back. It was not the heavy load on his back, and the walking. That was causing the sweat to start to roll down and collect on his lower back area. It was the growing fear, and building stress that he was working under. Squish, squish as foot after foot pressed into the mud. They were dark ghosts moving through the night between ground spaceships and handmade shacks.

The group of three had to stop four more times in the dark and mud. Before they were able to make it to the tent, that was the only school in the make shift town. When they had changed course, Jammer had told them where they were going. He had been lucky and they had worked this as a Plan B, before they had left the cave tonight. All Jammer had to do was shrug his shoulder and point off to the new direction that the pair assumed was the way to his shack. Jammer did not want to enter threw the entrance of the tent, that faced the muddy pathway. That would have exposed them to view on one of the main routes, used threw the area by the patrolling cylon Centurions. It just felt too exposed to him, so he went with what he thought was Plan D by now. Or was it Plan Q, he had given up on keeping track already.

Jammer was able to find an area on an offside of the fabric tent, which was covered by another grounded spaceship. This cover would make it so that they would be hard to be seen from most sides of the school tent. Jammer gave the single to stop moving, and dropped to one knee. When the other two had stopped moving, then he looked up. He could see that Eva and Robin were using there night vision devices to keep an eye out around, and under the grounded ship that was proving a lot of cover for them right now. He was comfortable knowing that he could work, with less chance of being spotted at least anyone from the outside of the tent. Jammer reached down and pulled a multi-tool from its clip on belt tool holster, and unfolded the very sharp knife blade from the Colonial made multi tool. He used the sharp serrated blade to cut a slit in the tough dirty canvas. He was starting at dirt level, cutting upwards to a little higher than knee high and then about the same length across at that same knee height. This made a ragged looking cut that looked a lot like an upside down L, before Jammer put the tool away in the holster it had come out of only a little over a minute ago.

He gave his head a slight shake left and right as he clipped the holster closed. The little tool was almost universally carried by Colonial military personnel, and well known for a 1000 different uses. Now it had a 1000 and one uses, and he could not wait to tell someone about it. He used his right and pulled the cut flap open a little, and looked inside the tent. He was surprised and he knew that he should not have been, but it was complete dark inside the tent.

Jammer's mind was going 90 mph as he looked into the dark abyss before him, and now the sweat really started to pore off of him. He was starting have a second thoughts about what might be waiting for him in the dark of the tent. That was on the other side of the cut he had just made into the tent side. He took a quick but very quiet breath, and then a slower one. It filled his lungs and slowed down his racing heart rate somewhat. He was also thinking that it was never a good sign, when you could hear your own heart beating in your ears and were hopping that no else noticed this little fact. The little pause he took helped him to get him a little calmer, for the next step that he knew he had to do. He drew the captured pistol from the still blood stained holster on his right hip with his shooting hand. With a quick flip of his wrist he pulled the weapon and his thumb flipped it off of safe mode. He looked left then right at the two women standing not that far from him. He did not notice but he had a sly grin on his face. When he ducked down, and slid one leg at a time into the dark tent.

The goggles that he had been given were not of any use in the dark tent that engulfed Jammer. There just was not any light for them to gather and intensify leaking into it, so the operator could not see anything at all. He used the hand that was not holding a weapon to remove the goggles from over one eye. Just to make sure that the high tech goggles had not just stopped working again. This had happened to him before, but that had only been due to the built in battery running out of power. They were working, but it was just as he had feared when they had not shown him anything. They were not designed to work in this type of situation. The room was as dark as a human form cylons heart, and Jammer had no idea what was waiting for him and his two new friends in that soul sucking dark.

Luckily Jammer had been prepared for something like this to happen to them, even if this was a surprise to him. He reached over to one side of his head, right by his left ear and reset the goggles. He did it just like he had been showed how to do in what seemed like a life time ago. He slowly rose from the low stance that he had been in since coming through the small opening, which he had cut in the tent wall. He was now a bigger and more easily hit target now that he was standing up like a normal person. Then he pulled a little something out of a small pocket on back of palm of his gloves, and struck a single quick light match. He dropped the lit match as soon as it came to life in flash of light giving heat, and did a quick 360 degree sweep of the tent with all of his senses alert to any danger.

Were ever his eyes went, the pistol tracked right along with them. The tent was empty of any threats, but he did a second sweep of the tent, this time slower. He was able to get this done before the light giving match went out on the wet mud cover wooden floor. The second sweep Jammer did with the aid of his low light goggles was also clear of any identifiable threats. Jammer kneeled back down this time on the dryish dirt covered wooden floor. He stuck out his off gun hand out the hole in the tent he had made. He waved for the two scouts to fallow him into the tent with a very Earther "Okay" hand sign. Eva's and Robins goggles had an active IR setting that worked differently than the googles Jammer had been using. After a second or two, they had the goggles switched on, and scanned the dark room as they entered threw the little hole. They entered one at a time ready as they could be, to react to attack. They also found the room clear of any threats, and Jammer had no idea that their shoulders relaxed at finding out this bit of news.

Satisfied that it was safe enough, Robin went down to her knees and pulled all three heavily loaded packs into the tent. They had been left outside of the tent to free them up so that they would not have been encumbered if fighting broke out. While she was doing that, Eva and Jammer were surveying the tent more closely into any area that might be hiding a treat. With the packs now inside safely inside the tent, they had to cover their trail. Robin and Jammer were able to quietly move a nearby by wooden table to cover the cut in the tent's side. Eva was under the table working with some dark color tape closed the cut fabric as soon as the table had stopped moving. When she was done with the tape, no one would notice the access point even if the table was moved. The afterglow from the two IR sources gave enough energy to let Jammers goggles see about as well as a person could see outside on a full moon night on Caprica. That is to say, he could see about five to ten feet or so. All of this was done without making any sound that would carry for that a few feet from them in the still air. It was a good bit of field craft, but Jammer no experience doing this kind of work. And did not have a good gauge on the skills being used and did not notice.

With all of the worked done for the moment, the three of them took about five minutes to find some convenient chairs to sit in and relax a little. They were able to catch their breaths, and get there heart rates back under some kind of control. They had been working under a very high stress situation for hour after hour. That can wear a person down, a lot quicker than most none military people would even realize. Jammer looked at the two green lit faces pointed towards one end of the tent, but not the exit flap. Then he slowly rose from one of the homemade wooden chairs, and started heading towards the second tent flap. This would lead toward the separate area of the school. It would lead to the area Roslin used as her living/sleeping area. It was away from the school teaching area, and its exit/entry point to the rest of the camp. It was as private of an area, which she could have on this cold planet. If she had wanted any of a dozen ships would have made room for here. She had even turned down more than that many offers when they had first set up the school tent.

Robin nodded as Jammer rose from his chair and she rose from her own chair. She moved toward the tent flap, the one that would have exited the tent into the mud filled path of the main access way. Jammer was trying to remember if the ex-president had a smuggled weapon or not, in her living place. He did not want to end this night with a hole in his chest made by a Colonial weapon, and the sound of cylon feet running toward the sound of the gun shot. That would have sucked, and that lovely little thought made him almost stumble in the low light.

Then he was thinking, that might come later anyway. When his wife found out what he had been up to, and with whom. Or more to the point the sex of, whom he had sending the last few days with. It was sure to make for some long cold nights, where he was sleeping on the hard floor of his shack. Not there in his somewhat softer bed, and a lot warmer wife. Jammer stopped walking for second again. He was amazed, at what you mind brings up. That is when your life might end any second. He had to fight down a chuckle, and started walking to the closed tent flap, however he was not able to stop his slight head shake.

Well what the Frak thought Jammer to himself and have a slight head shake. He need to focus on what he was doing now, and worry about what his wife might do to him later. He pitched his voice low as he could. He wanted to use as little air as he could, but still do the job of let the person on the other side of the tent flap know that she was not alone anymore. It was going to be a hard balancing act so that this voice did not make it out of the other closed tent flap. "Mrs. Roslin, its Jammer. Are you in there? I need to talk to you. It's really important. Can you come out to the school area?" Jammer stopped talking, and took two or three steps back from the tent flap. Now all he could do was wait for something to happen…one way or the other.

A female and sleepy sounding voice came back softly threw the green colored tent flap blocking Jammers view into the other room. "Jammer? What in the Gods name are you doing here? What time is it? How did you get here with the cylon curfew? Are you Fraking nuts or something?" It was exactly what you would expect to be asked, if nothing had been going on behind the scenes between the two people talking.

Jammer did not reply at once, and just blinked at the not moving tent flap in the dark tent. He did not know how to take those statements that had just been flung at him. The flying questions were differently not on the list of things that he thought she would say to him, when he ran this plan threw his head an hour ago. After all she was the one who had asked him to take the mission, and now she was asking what he was doing there. Jammer was very confused and he was starting to think that maybe the cancer was back again and it was affecting her mind. That thought flashed threw his mind, and right back out again not sticking around in his brain. That was when it hit him like a thunder bolt from Zeus, and then he had to grin about her impressive set of acting skills. She could not see him through the closed tent flap, and it was dark as Hades. So maybe she was thinking that it could be a cylon trick of some kind. "Ma'am I know it's late. But I have something I need to show you tonight, and before everyone is moving around New Caprica. Can you please come out into your teaching area; there is more room out here?" Jammer was trying to keep his voice level, but it still seemed to have a lot of wining in the tone. Even to his own ears.

Eva had heard the exchange and she was watching both the Colonial and the tent flap he was talking to. She had no idea what was being said by the Colonials, she could hear them talking. However she could see the concern on Jammer's face, and she did not like the tone he was using at the end of whatever he was saying. When Jammer turned his head slightly and nodded at her. She slowly drew her high tech side arm, and aimed it towards the entrance Jammer was standing by. It was only as a just in case, someone other than the person they wanted see came into the dark tent with the three of them. Robin was now even more on edge and peaked outside the tent exit flap, but she did not see any signs of a threat from her position. Robin already had her weapon out, she just moved the selector switch to burst mode from single shot mode. Eva checked her Northern Gun designed Ion Rifle, and satisfied did a head nod to Robin. They were as ready as they could be if things went sideways on them. There odds were not that great if they did, but they were as ready as they could be. Eva and Robin were confident that if they went down to night. They would take a lot of cylons with them, before it was a done deal.

Jammer heard a loud exhale then, and heavy clothing moving from the other side of the tent flap he had been steering at for some time now. While the moving cloth sounds was still going on, a tired sounding female voice care out of the side room. The voice held just the right amount of resigned tone to it. "Okay, just give me a second to put something on will you. Can you get some light on in there while I do that?" That might have sounded like a question, but both Colonials knew that it was an order in all but name.

Jammer smiled, if this had been a cylon trick, the cylons had just given up a priceless advantage by asking Jammer to turn the lights up. As far as Jammer knew, all Cylons could see better in the dark then any normal humans from the Colony's. He had been betting his life it was not better than, what Eva's and Robin's equipment could do in the dark. Now they would not have to, if the person behind the tent flap wanted some lights turned on in the larger room, that they were now standing in now. "Can do, I will get right on that ma'am." Jammer turn away from the tent flap door, and at the quick step went to the main table at one end of the tent. Eva joined him as he activated a small light camp light, which would not over power someone's night sensitive eyes with its level of power. But it was more than bight enough to see very well under its blue/white glow. It also would not been seen by anyone walking around on the outside of the tent, with the double tent flaps closed and tied off for the night. The table also was the farthest from any other point of the tent, which might have hidden ears of any kind trying to hear but not be seen. All they now could do was wait for Laura to join them. Eva and Robin kept their weapons pulled, and ready for instant use if this turned out to be a trap after all. It paid to be careful.

Laura Roslin entered the wood floored tent looking down, and still tying a cord around a well-worn thick house coat, while she was moving the covering tent flap aside with the other hand. Jammer would have bet his last credit. That the house coat had not been something she had packed along with her, on what turned out to be her last trip off Caprica, so long ago. Then again she was known for being able to make a good deal. To Jammer, it just had the look of something she would have had, it was a perfect mental image. Jammer could not stop a snort from coming out of his lips at the image coming out of the side living area.

Laura looked up with a jerk when she noticed that Jammer was not alone, and let the flap of the tent that led to her living area close behind her just by the pull of gravity. She did not have a weapon, not that it mattered one bit, if she did have one or two weapons on her person or in her sleeping area. That was because she did not know how to use one, even if a target was at this close of a range as well as not moving at all. It was one of those things that you never think you might need to know, or that there always be time to learn later. She looked at the man and smiled at him. She was thinking that thankfully it was not a trap after all but, he was not alone in the low lit classroom. They only had 40, 000 people left from the whole of the Colonies of Kobal. She did not know everyone's name, but she knew the faces of her people, especially the ones left on this mud ball with her. And these two women were not faces she knew, or had seen before on this planet. When her eyes moved south from the faces, she saw the strange weapons in their hands. With this little bit of information, she knew they were from the Earthers settlement that was somewhere hidden on this cold, wet and hidden planet. This was only the second time she had seen one of them, and now there were two of them. "They were showing more and more of themselves, but slowly" thought Roslin.

Roslin looked at the other two strange people in the room, and her heart seemed to almost stop beating in her chest for a few long seconds. Both were women, and dressed like they knew how to wage war. At least to Roslin not untrained eye but she had some skills picking out combat veterans. That had been a skill she had picked up after the cylon attack, and with the help of Bill Adama to point out the more subtle differences. The two women both reminded her of two or three of the women marines, which were on the BattleStar Pegasus that she had met a few times. That had been after things had settled down, and well after Admiral Helena Caine had been dealt with. This made a part of Roslin happy inside, because she had known that some of the 12 Tribes of Man. Did not like the idea and were extremely vocal, about women in combat or in military rolls of any kind. Bill Adama, and other key surviving military leaders thought that was to short sighted to live with. Now that Roslin had seen two women, dressed for combat, for some reason it let her think that it was a good start. It was not like her to jump to a conclusion like that so fast. She had to mentally pull back some, and make sure she had her game face on.

One part of Roslin's mind studied the strangers very quickly, and was automatically filing every scrap of data her eyes could pull out of the two fighters. Both of the women looked to her to be about the same age, but that was all they had in common. One of the women was just, well massive was the word that comes to mind, but not in an overweight kind of way. She looked solid, like a huge hunk of walking battlestar armor. She would have been considered tall even for a man, much less a woman but still looked very womanly. Both men and women who were Viper pilots, tended to run more on the thin and athletic side. They all tended to have the same body build as Starbuck and Apollo. And that was limit she had, in knowledge of the predominate body styles of the military. She had no doubt that this massive woman was fit, and she had the look like she could bend a Centurion in half without breaking a sweet.

Roslin tuned back to the only male in the tent filled with the three women, and gave him a slight smile. As she was looking down her glasses at him, she had what she thought of as her political smile on. "So Jammer it is you after all. You almost gave me a heart attack when you woke me up like that. Would you like to introduce me to your new friends please?" With the last words she waved her hand to point generally to the two women.

Jammer nodded to Roslin then turned and gave the two scouts a wink. That was the signal that everything was okay, and that that were not going to die just yet. The two scouts did not really need it before they started to relax some. They could read Jammers body language and could tell that things were okay or at least a little more okay than they had been a few minutes before. Eva and Robin nodded to each outer and moved to the one table to sit on a pair nearby chairs. They waited without saying a word, as Jammer did all of the talking. It was strange, that now it was them that had to sit around being the subject of conversation and not know who was saying what about whom. It was a small dose of what Jammer had been dealing with for some time now. During all of that time he had been working with the Eva and Robin. The shoe was now on the other foot, and did not feel that great on their feet. They did have one advantage that Jammer had not had. At least they had each other to talk to while the Colonials worked a few things out. It they had wanted to. They did not, but that little fact made this event less stressful for them.

Jammer very quickly and with a low voice caught the ex-president up, on what had happened since he had left on the mission she had given him. He tried to cover it in as much detail as he could, but he did not want to waste too much of her time. On top of that he knew that the sun would be coming up in a few hours. He stopped talking to the older women, and looked back at the two women he had been working with over what had seemed like weeks and on days. Eva and Robin looked right back at him when he turned to make eye contact. "Could you please empty the packs and put the stuff on the table. I want to show her some of it so that she can get an idea of what is being offered as help…. right now." He spoke slowly and very clearly. The two women were able to understand the pigeon English, that they had started to use between the three of them. But he still passed them a typed note on the computer screen, to make sure everything was understood. This was not the time to have a miss understanding of any kind. He just did not have time for it.

While Robin read the message to make sure there was not any miss under standings. Eva rose and stated working on the packs that Jammer had been referring to. When Robin finished reading the short note she joined Eva at the rucksacks. It took both Robin and Eva working on the task, but soon they unloaded the tree bags. They pulled out dried fish, fruit, the Colonial weapons, and the extra ammunition for those weapons and put them all on the wooden table top. They were removing the tightly rolled up leathersish like long coats last since they were at the bottom of the rucksacks. They had been put there due to their bulk compared to the other items. The three of them had carried over 90 pounds of stuff, all the way from the Cave to this dark tent on enemy controlled land tonight. It was a hard bit of work, no matter how fit you might be.

The contents of the three packs quickly filled the wooden table to over flowing with items, which were just the first taste of what was just starting to come the Colonials way. While the two were pulling out the supplies for the rucksacks, Jammer was giving a running commentary on what was being exposed and put on the table by the two women. When they were done laying out the items on the table. Robin pointed to her watch and taped it once with a long thin finger. She then held up two fingers and made a circle around the watch face clock wise. Jammer gave her thumbs up sign, and then both women went out the front tent flap into the still dark night. Without saying a word, the school teacher was watching every move of the three other people in her domain. Even if she was feeling a little over whelmed about what was happening around her. She was still watching and filing away everything she saw and had heard. Her people were already working, what seemed like well to her eyes, with these strangers. It was all happening in an amazing short amount of time.

The Ex-president was standing around waiting. This was a rare experience for her, and one she had not had to do that often these last few years. At least since her last promotion on that fateful day the cylons killed every one with higher civilian rank than the head of the Department of Education. Jammer had turned his back to her after telling her a wild tail, which she could see more than a few holes in. He said a string of words that she was able to pick out only about six as being Colonial, but the rest were completely unknown to her. One of the two women seemed to understand, and started to move. Roslin was distracting by getting a closer look at the strange clothes she was wearing. She had seen similar style on one of her trips to a huge horse range some years ago. This only lasted a few seconds before Roslin's eyes were drawn to something else.

Then she noticed that Jammer was tapping on some kind of display screen. It was kind of similar to the bigger device, which she had been using to figure out how to communicate with these strangers. Only it was a lot smaller and with some kind of touch screen. She did not see what he typed, but he did it with a speed that belied how much he had been using the thing over the last few days. He passed it to the tall solid built woman in a tight fitting back clothing that did nothing to hide her impressive body shape. She quickly read the screen and gave a sly smile back to Jammer and joined the other woman moving backpacks closer to the wooden table.

The two women soon started pulling packages out of the three backpacks that Roslin had not noticed before, and placed the objects on the handmade table top. As they were doing that, Jammer was telling her what each package was. Jammer also explained that the leader of the local defense force, did not have much that he could risk being found in the compound by the cylons at this time. But the military commander had sent back in with Jammer, some of the Colonial military weapons they had captured from cylon group they had attacked them a few days ago. He told her about what he had said when he had read the note, she had given him to pass along.

This was considered to be not much, but this one gift would be a significant increase to the hidden Colonial firepower in camp. She knew that Saul Tigh would have been just grateful for all of the military grade ammunition these three had brought in those rucksacks. Roslin's eye had already picked upon the rifle and pistol Jammer was carrying. She knew that he did not have those when he started this mission. She was wondering what the story behind that was, and she made a mental note to find out. Tigh might even give up drinking, for what she was seeing as only a supply of whatever they had on hand with more hopefully to come into their hands. That was comforting finding out that the strangers had send whatever they could right then, even if it was so little seeming to them. She was happy seeing the military items coming out of the packs, and then hers and ears went wide when other items started hitting the wooden table top.

That was until the fresh and dried fruit started to come out of the three rucksacks. Then the protein came out of the rucksacks fallowing the packages of fruit. Jammer said it was all local caught and eatable for the Colonials. He said that he had been eating it since the night he left and had no adverse effect on him…. besides wanting more of it. This made Roslin's stomach start to rumble at the idea of animal protein, all too soon those packaged ended coming out of the rucksacks. Now she was looking at the rolls of cloth being pulled out by the two strange women. Or what she at first thought might be clothes of some kind. She thought that she had recovered quickly from seeing all of that hard to find food dumped into a growing pile. The bundles of cloth served to distract her from the food in front of her.

Roslin had to fight to keep a question from showing on her face or even ask Jammer, yet. Later she would find out. Why they would waste the limited space and mass in those three packs by sending in cloth or clothes into this cylon controlled camp? Sure they could use it to make some new clothes, but the amount of cloth she was seeing. Just was not that much, and could not make that much of a difference in the need it might best address. Jammer had stopped talking to her again and she was about clear her throat, but stopped. She noticed that Jammer was not looking at the gift covered table either. She noticed he was looking at one of the two women that had come into the tent with him. It was the women in the amazingly skin tight cloths, and she had started to make hand gestures. Jammer seemed to understand that they meant, and returned some of them. He even added a few head movements that did not help her understand the content they were exchanging. Roslin was completely in the dark about what was going on, and she realized that she did not like it on fraking bit. This was one of the few times lately, which showed that she missed the access to information that her previous lofty position had given her

It was with some amazement, at least to Roslin, to seem the smooth grace that the two women in their strange cloths were now showing. She was watching as the two women un-slung strange looking rifle type weapons, and moved toward the exit tent flap as a pair. She was about to say something about the cylon patrols as a warning, but stopped. She remembered at the last second something Bill had told her more than once. "You need to leave it to the military, to plan military type things." She just watched the pair slink out the fabric tent flap, with a predator's or hunting cat like grace. Jammer was also watching the women as they were leaving the tent. He was still watching, just long enough for Roslin to start to worry about the future of his short marriage. When he turned to face her, it was not love in his eyes that Roslin was seeing. It was more like respect, and maybe a little fear mixed in for good measure. Okay more than a little fear was mixed in that look coming from the young man. She was think that it could have been him thinking, about what his wife might do to him. When she found out about these two vixens, and the work they had been doing with her husband. Now Roslin had to fight a grin from coming to her face, it would have ruined the fun she was about have with him. Even an old school teacher like to poke a little fun at a student every now and then. She would just have to wait until the time was just right.

Jammer made eye contact with the person he still considered the leader of his people. "Ma'am, do you mind if we take a seat now? It's been a long few days." Jammer pointed to the pair of wooden seats. It was the same two seats that the two women had moved by the table, to help conceal the cut that they had made in the tent side. He was looking longingly at the seat nearest him and repeated himself as further proof that he was almost at the end of his energy rope. "It has been a long day. A very long day if you know what I mean!" He was thinking about how much longer this day was going to be, and that did not count what was going to said when he finally got home. He was hoping that he would be able to push off most of the explanation that she would want, until he had gotten some rest. On the other hand, that might be a little optimistic on his part.

Roslin smiled a little smile and went into mother mode; it was not that hard for her to do this. She had already decided that she like Jammer, even before he had been sent on this last mission. "Of course Jammer, I have some water in the back. I will get some for us and we can talk for a while." Before Jammer could say anything else, she had turned and swiftly walked back into her living area of the school.

Jammer was already taking a seat in the wooden chair, and was fighting to keep his eyes open and utterly failed. When he heard her steps approaching on the rough cut wooden floor, his eyes popped opened. He then shook his head in a negative motion, when she offered the glass of rain water or maybe ships distilled water to him. "No thank you ma'am." He reached on into a cargo pocket about mid-way to his knee on his mud covered pants. He pulled out a strange square object that had a top like one of the military canteens, she had seen some in the Military had used from time to time. "I do have some cool fruit juice. It is not loaded with anything. It's just good coolish fruit juice. They have a few trees that came from their home, and they mix it with some of the locally grown stuff they have found. It has a strange favor…. but not bad. Would you like some?" He offered her the square plastic canteen that had never seen the planets of the Colonies or cylons. When she put up her hand palm, and out saying that she did not want any without saying a word. Jammer kept on talking. "It's very good, and I don't mind sharing." He gave Laura a friendly smile, and shook the offered canteen sides to side slowly. "As long as I still have some left, to bring back home. That way the wife does not take part of my anatomy off, and attached to the front of the shack. When I get home, I'm going to need a peace offering of some kind. Or there is going to be Hades to pay."

Roslin relented and took the offered container, and turned the top to open the lid. She took a small drink, and then with wide eyes she took a longer one. It was amazing. She had a hard time remembering when she had tasted anything like it. As Jammer had said it was strange but it was also very good. She had to force herself to pull the slowly collapsing container from her lips after the second longer sip.

With the container closer, and to get her mind off of the amazing tasting fruit juice she looked at it. It looked like it could hold maybe two quarts or so of any liquid, but she did not want to drink it all. No matter how much she wanted to, and she knew that Jammer would have not begrudged her if she had drunk deeper from the container. Beside Jammer was right, he would need one Hades of a peace offering for his wife later, and as a matter of fact so would Laure. Jammer's wife had been in this very tent a few hours ago just before curfew. She had been visibly upset that her husband had not returned home, and wanted to know why and were he might be. She was a good woman, and knew in her heart that it was not because of another woman or something along those lines. But she had wanted to know if anything had come up, about if he was alive or not. Roslin passed the juice container back to Jammer who took another good slug from the collapsing contain. Before tighten the plastic screw topped lid back on the canteen like device. Roslin could feel the fruit juice recharging her, but not in a hot tea kind of way. This was different, but good as she felt like her brain was now working at the proper level for the first time in a long time. She would have to find out what was in the juices. She had no idea what an orange or OPP might, be but it made her feel better as the vitamins hit her blood stream like a Viper launch down rails. Jammer had quit talking as he put the container away. Roslin was content to let Jammer get this thought in order, if he took too long she would use some tricks she knew to get people talking on him.

Jammer was trying to figure out where to begin, and Roslin was content on let him take his time so she just waited as she saw his face show that he was mentally working the issue. It was not like she would be able to go back to sleep anytime soon anyway. When he was ready, he made eye contact again and started talking about what he had been through. It was slow and measured, not at all like before. When it was more like a kid talking about presents he had opened on Founding day to his grandparents. The first comment was not what Roslin had expected him to start his story with. "I'm glad these two went ahead and left when they did." Roslin let a well-schooled concerned expression grow on her face. But she did not say anything just yet. Jammer picked up on the look, and reacted to explain why he had made that statement to her. "No don't get me wrong Ma'am, they both are great people to work with and know. Robin and Eva were the ones that first found me, and then helped me get to the military commander with the message you gave me to give to them. What I meant was." Jammer stopped talking for a few seconds, then started back up. "It is more like you don't want underestimate them madam President. They both are dangerous as Frak and let me tell you their weapons are not just for show. I have seen them first hand; those two are a pair of killers like you have never seen or read about." Jammer gave a little snort of amusement. "That is unless you liked those kinds of entertainment shows back home. They are nice, and even very friendly, but they are still very much a set of killers at heart." Jammer was looking levelly at the older woman. He was trying to convey a warning to the leader of his people as best he could.

"I was wondering about them when I first saw them. One looks like she should be hanging out with Saul's wife in some sex club back on Caprica. The other one looks likes she could be out in the Outback on some back water outpost watching over beef cows or something." Roslin was trying to lighten the mood, and tinged her voice with a bit of humor. "Maybe the first one could even be carrying those animals around. So they don't have to walk and lose any mass due the exercise. That is one massive woman. I hope she is not taking those types of drugs, they will kill you in the end." Laura was shaking her head from side to side at what she knew would lower the tensions coming off of Jammer in heat waves. She also was picturing the tall and massively built woman. She was power lifting a Viper onto its launch rails, because she simply did not want to wait for a lift.

Jammer smiled but this time it was not in jest. He did not like the tone she had used in describing the body armor those two had been using. He could feel that she was already under estimating them, just like he had. Or maybe even worse than he had, because of her lack of any real combat experience. "Ma'am please don't underestimate there technology when it comes to weapons or clothes. What they were wearing, are two different types of very strong scouting class body armor." Jammer was watching Laura, and he had the feeling that she was not connecting the dots the way he wanted her to. He made a slight face and tried once again to explain. "On the way out of the camp, I had a Centurion patrol almost step on top me under this." He held out the fabric blanket he was wearing like some kind of sword fighter's cape, to show her the blanket he had taken out with him. He knew that she knew how effective the odd little blanket had been. "They were closer than you are to me, and they did not notice me, at all. What is built into their outer armor, and what they were wearing is a type of body armor, is even better than that as a cover against the cylons see them."

That was not exactly true, but it was close enough to be effective for what Jammer needed to do. Next Jammer went into vivid detail about the two attacks he had been in, while working with the two women. He was trying to keep it to the more believable facts, and to keep his opinion out of the story telling. Roslin might not have believed all of it, but when he told her about a group of twenty people armed with only small sidearms, rifles, and one crew severed weapon. And that they had stopped an attack by cylons dead in its tracks. Those Cylons monsters had outnumbered the human attacker by at least ten to one. It did not take long for her to put together that little bit of information, with what she knew about the missing Centurions a few days ago. Which were supposed to have been damaged by some king of "Training accident" this had brought her mentally up short. Laura did not tell Jammer about all of the wrecked Centurions they had seen carried into the camp, and into the Cylon's headquarters building. She had not wanted to stop Jammer now that he had started talking.

Jammer even told her about them being able to bring two Raiders down during the last fight, as well as all of Centurions and human forms that had been on the ground during the ambush. He told her about seeing people to the left and right of him during the firefight get hit by the Centurion returning fire, and not be hurt. He had to tell her twice, that they were could stay in the fight after being hit by those cylon weapons. Roslin had been to the med bays after cylons had boarded the BattleStar and had seen the horrific wounds caused by the weapons fire that had made it all too easily threw the Colonial body armor. When jammer stopped talking and took a long breath. Roslin saw her chance before; he could start on another roll out of information to hopefully get some more answers to cut down her growling list of questions. She was betting that now was the best time and risked stalling the talking man.

"Jammer I don't doubt you saw what you say you saw. But is there any way you might have misjudged the numbers of cylons that were in the attack?" This would not be the first time that Laura had to work someone threw what they had thought they had seen, but had turned out not to be so planet shattering. She had developed that skill working with younglings early in her teaching career. It also had come in handy in her new leadership position on more than one occasion already. "You were in a high stress situation, and if I remember right. You were not marine trained, and have not been in that much ground combat before. That is before your trip outside our little prison camp. There could have been more people on the defensive line, or maybe less attacking cylons. How do you or I know for sure? Just calm down and thing hard, picture in your head what you saw, and try to do it with as much detail as you can place in that mental picture." Roslin forced herself to set back in the chair and look more relaxed than she felt.

Jammer knew when someone normally said they did not doubt you. That meant that they really did doubt you in the first place no matter what they said to your face. His frustration level was starting to climb, maybe faster because he was so tired. "Ma'am I need to show you something, and it will help me explain a few things a lot better." Jammer leaned over and untied the strings that were on one of the rolls of cloth on the table. When he shook out the cloth, you could clearly now see that it was a long thin overcoat of some kind. It had been expertly rolled to take the least amount of space as it possibly could in the rucksacks. Jammer was trying to show off the leather like outer coat. "I saw a coat like this one take three long burst from the primary Centurion auto weapon, at point blank range. I was able to see the weapon before the firing. And I know it was loaded with live cylon ammunition when they did the testing. It did not make one hole in the thing, and I could see them hit the coat round after round from where I was standing. The bullet heads just were stuck to the fabric, or had been turned to dust." Jammer was shaking his head from side to side as he spoke. He was seeing Major Weston demonstration replaying in his mind, and he was still having a hard time believing what he was saying. "When they brought the coat back up, so that everyone could see it what had been the results of the testing. They were not trying in funny business with the testing."

Jammer passed the garment over to the ex-president, so that she could get a closer look at it. He was glad that he had remembered that the test coat had been tired up by a bit of white twine. He knew that the coat still had some power marks from the strike of the cylon rounds onto it. "Now from what they told me, and yes I know not to take everything that was said at face value. This coat would not be considered out of the ordinary, to be seen on just about any one." He was shaking his head again. "And it would seem that it is even concerted as normal street wear of them back home. I walked through the second battle site as well as the first site. I even helped pickup items that might be useful for them from the second and larger battle site. The people on the line were not some kind of elite or special unit. Were they good? Frak yes! Could they compete against Caprica Hostage Rescue teams? I don't think so. The battle line was just made up of the closest people at that time and that could come and help me, Eva and Robin to get away from the massive cylon attack force."

Jammer was lost in thought again, his eyes lost focuses soon his fingers were drumming softly on the wooded table. "I saw this one girl who must have been a teenager, get into line only about two or three minutes before the cylon showed up." He had a sly smile and the head shakes again. "She had been running for everything she was worth, just so that she could get into the action. I talked to her a little bit afterwords. She told me, that she had not wanted to miss the fun. They think that fighting a few hundred cylons is the very idea of fun." Jammer took another breath and looked over to Laura. "Ma'am I was with these people. It they wanted to lie about something? I don't think they would make it so thinly covered. They would know that we could find out that the cylons were a lot fewer or that the defensive line was thicker in defenders some time later. They seem to have an issue about being very up front about themselves to us."

Roslin was looking again at the clothes bundles and untied each of the rolls and laid out them out over the not so small stack of supplies on the table. She was going doing up a list of people in her head, of who might be able to use these coats best. That is if Jammer was right about what he saw of the coats and the attitude of this branch of humans. Roslin bit her lower lip, and turned to look at Jammer over her glasses and made a little show of checking her small time peace on her left arm. "Okay Jammer, I need you to go over everything again, and try not to leave anything out. I just want to make sure you remembered everything." She was smiling at the younger man so that her tone would not sting so badly. "It's a higher education teaching technique, which I have used before." She was not lying to the younger man. It also just so happened that it was also used in criminal interrogations, so that the inspectors could pick apart alibis of a suspect. She was not going to tell Jammer that little bit of information.

Jammer shrugged his shoulders, and started talking again. He started from the time he was sliding out of the cylon controlled camp. He thought about reaching for his two quart canteen of juice, and then changed his mind at the last second. He had hoped to be on his way to his wife, but it was not like he could make it back to his little shack, until the sun came up anyway. Roslin had him retell his story again after he had finished. He had made it this far safely, so why risk getting caught for breaking curfew this close to being done. Jammer did as he was asked again, and started from the time that he left Human area of New Caprica until he returned. It took him almost three hours to make it through this final telling. When he was finished he had also finished the glass of water that Roslin had brought out for him. He had not touched the fruit juice the entire time he had been talking.

It was just before the sun would be coming up, when Roslin stopped Jammer from starting to bring up another point of interest to her that he was not sure he had said before. Instead Roslin had Jammer help her move the supplies from the table in the main tent, to her small living area. Load after arm load of items, were brought to her room. They put them on her small homemade bed under some blankets that were too thin for use on this planet. It was not to long after all of the supplies were out of sight in her living area, that a loud electronic ringing sounded threw out the fleet of grounded space ships and rickety shacks. As soon as the ringing stopped, Jammer could hear people starting to move around outside the tent in the morning mud of the refugee camp. The curfew was over, for now. It should be safe or at least safeish for him to make his way to his hopefully wife occupied home. That was about halfway around the camp for the school tent.

Jammer stopped moving while he was helping tie the tent flaps closed. What stopped him was the sound of the language of his people being spoken, just a few feet away from him. It was almost like a homecoming, but still sad, when he thought that it was not a city or town. His language was only spoken in a prison camp. He saw Roslin looking at him and he made eye contact with her. "Ma'am. I need to go home before the wife blows a Fraking gasket and I'm exhausted. Can you give me at least a few hours, before I have to go over everything again?" The tired was leaking threw Jammers voice. He was now pushing 24 hours straight of stress and exertion. Even with that stress and lack of sleep, he had already realized without being asked. That he was going to have to retell about his adventures to others and do it today no matter how tired he was.

Roslin did not saying anything right away and worked through any issues that might come up. She waited for a minute letting the outside noise build to what she thought of as a normal level. She gave a sly smile to Jammer. "Well Jammer, yesterday she was here about five minutes after the bell, so why don't you wait here so that you don't miss her? If she is not here in half an hour, we can always send a runner and have her come here. Besides, I have a good hot plate we can cook up some of the supplies you brought in for a nice meal together." She stopped taking and looked a Jammer for a long second. "You know, just the three of us without anyone over hearing anything they might should not. After all a pregnant women can use what you have been able to bring back to us as well as anyone else." Roslin gave a sly smile towards Jammer, and then gave a wink of her left eye at him. "I still think that I would hold off on the fruit drink, till she has gotten her mad out of her system." She gave Jammer a second one eyed wink, and she could see Jammer turn a red in the face.

Jammer was thinking about it, and was leaning towards decline the offer. That was when a very familiar voice called from the still tied closed tent lap that led into the classroom from outside world. From the tone and volume used, the person on the other side of tent flaps much have heard Roslin's voice but could not hear it clearly enough to know what was said. "Roslin have you heard anything?" It was like music to Jammer's ears. He was moving towards the tent flap with steps that a well-rested man would have envied. He had been moving before his mind could order his feet to start going in that direction. It was like magic.

Roslin smiled knowing that the decisions had been made for the man, without him having to say a word one way or the other. She did not have to see the smile on the man's face to know it was there. It made her fell all of a sudden very lonely, knowing that she might not feel that way again. She started to turn and walk towards her living area and called over her right shoulder in a voice that would carry much farther than the moving Jammer. "I will get the hot plate out." Next Roslin pitched her voice to carry to the outside world. "Paula, Jammer and I are back here. Why don't you come on back, and join us?" Roslin had just enough time to get off the runway. As the little women streaked in threw the now opened tent flap, and jumped into her husband's arms. She cleared a solid ten feet of open air to land in Jammer's open arms, very pregnant belly and all. It was a perfect image of the young couple, and it was refreshing to see that in this camp filled with depression.

Roslin was enjoying seeing two people in love sharing a hot meal at the common table that was in her small living area. She only had to tell the other woman once, that they needed to go easy on the food. That had been after Paula got a good look at the new supply on Roslin's bed. She phased it in such a way, that the younger woman knew that other people in need could have some on the new bounty. Roslin brought Paula up to speed on what her husband had been up to, and that it had been for the good of all Colonials. Paula was both proud and upset that, he would take that kind of risk. And not let her have a say in if he was going to do something like that or not. Jammer doing the smartest thing he could have done. That was just being quiet and was letting his wife talk with the other woman. Roslin made sure that very little was said that was directly about the two days he had spent with the two women fighters. When Jammer's wife had calmed down some, Jammer pulled out the fruit juices canteen and let her have two large and deep drinks before closing it up and putting it away again. When she tilted her head and gave him a look. Jammer gave a slight negative head shake. That was enough to stop his wife for now, and she quickly thought that he was saving it for later.

After a length of time that Roslin thought was good with her now impressive political well used skills. Roslin was about to deliver news that the young couple was not going to like that much. "Paula, I know Jammer wants to go home with you right now. But I need him to do some things, before I can let him go home to you." Roslin could see the younger woman start to make a comment but she could not allow that just yet. It was not time to deliver the bribe, which Roslin had thought long and hard about. "Why don't you take a few of the dried or fresh fruit things, which are on my bed, with you?" She gave the younger woman sly smile, but she was about to be giving some good advice. "You might want to hide them in a deep pocket or something. You don't want the wrong person to see you with them." Crime was at very low level in the camp, but that was not to say that it was not existent either. Having been seen with some fresh fruit might cause a riot, or even worse for the young woman.

Jammer's wife looked back and forth between her husband and the Ex-President and made a face, but did not say a word. She simple rose form the small table and first kissed her man, then walked or to the small bed. Paula picked two of the strange but very tasty fresh fruits from the pile of supplies on the bed. Then put them in inside cargo pocket of her over coat. It would protect them primarily from the cold of this planet, but also from any prying eyes that she might run into on the way home. After a more lingering kiss on Jammer's lips, she was heading for the first of two tent flaps. It did not take an Oracle to know that she was not that happy with the idea not leaving without her husband. She however, would not buck the person that she felt was still the Leader of her people. Not this time at least, but who know what the future might hold. Before Jammer's wife could open the tent flaps, Laura had one more thing to say to her before she left. "Paula would you please stop by Mr. Clallan's place on your way home, and let him I would like him to come over as soon as he could." Paula gave a slight head nod that said she would do as she had been asked. Roslin could have given a nonverbal in replay, but thought better of it. "Thank you." That was the simple verbal reply, given to the pregnant woman's back as she disappeared out the tent flap.

Laura Roslin let the other woman leave and was doing so things that Jammer had no idea why she was doing them. When she returned to the living area she had found out that Jammer had fallen asleep in the chair. He jerked awake when she closed a book a little louder than she needed. Now that Jammer was awake and a little recharged, she looked at Jammer over her the top edge of her glasses. She felt it was time to address and issue she saw before Jammer's wife had come over. "Jammer, I trust that we are not going to have any issues with your and your Amazon friends?" She was about to say more, but Jammer was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming out of both eyes like they were coming out of a pair of IV tubes. He would not have heard whatever would have fallowed, anyway. Laura had taken the time to get into "work" clothes while Jammer had rested. Roslin took a seat and waited for Jammer to get a hold of himself. He had some explaining to do and she was not going to let him off the hook, until he did so and did it completely.

Jammer's whole face and neck were red as he tried to talk, but he could only gasp, and laugh all at the same time. It almost sound like he was choking to death and from that Roslin had said to him. She was getting ready to do exactly that thing to him if he did not get under control…..soon. After about ten minutes Roslin shot him one of her signature looks, and he was able to get himself under control after a lot of work. "Sorry Ma'am but Amazon is the handle that everyone uses for Robin." When she tilted her head, and made a hand gesture for him to continue what he was talking about. Jammer could still tell that he was on some thin ice after laughing at the powerful woman. "Robin was the real tall, big one of the pair. And was the one with the "real" scout armor, which would look either just right or just way wrong on a solicitor from Caprica." Jammer started to snicker again and quickly cut it off when he was given "the Look" gain, then her eyes went wide. It was like so one had put an exposed power cord to her toes.

Roslin jerked her head up when it hit her like a thunder bolt, about what Jammer was talking about. Could this? Might be a common thread between their two tribes, who have been separated for what might be hundreds of yarns? Did this tribe's military have a common practice with the Colonial military? "They call her Amazon, like we call Kara Thrace Starbuck?" She had that "lost in thought" look in her eyes for a split second but only for a split second. She was talking to herself, and again voiced something that was tickling part of her brain that she could not put her finger on yet. "Amazon, I know that name. Where do I know that name from?" Roslin was not talking to Jammer, only to herself as she tried to force the name threw her brain to find a hinted at connection. She really hated not being able to recall things. And this came out threw the tone, that had slipped out with her questions to the air of the school tent. She was running on about half of her normal amount of sleep for about four days in a row, so her mind had every right to be a little slower than what was normal for her. That did not mean that she had to accept that little fact of life gracefully.

Duck had entered school tent from behind the ex-president, without making enough sound to be noticed by the pair sitting at the wooden table. He did not know that he was in fact sneaking up on the pair at the small table. "Amazon's are great warrior women. They had fought and died for the Lords of Kobal before the first exodus. Why are you wondering about ancient legends?"

Roslin kept her self-control, turned in the chair, to see that it was Duck and not someone that might have sounded like him. She had not been keeping an eye on the tent flap, and she kicked herself for not doing that simple thing. She was thinking "What if" that had been a one of those Fraking human forms" and not Duck. She schooled her face, and then changed it to give a welcoming smile to the young man. "Thank you for coming over Duck, why don't you join us. I think we needed to move to the main tent, so that we can keep a better eye out."

Jammer nodded his head and rose from this chair. He had not jumped at the sound of Duck talking, but it had been a close thing. He left small table in the side living room area of Laura's space. When they entered the main area of the tent used for meetings and teaching. Laura pointed to some open wooden chair at the table for the two men to use. "Jammer has spent the last few days with our new friends. He was also able to bring some goodies back in with him, that our little town can desperately use. I need you to clear it with Saul first, but I want you to be the next representative to go out and see our friends. Laura was watching for any signs coming from Duck that might signal, he might balk at the order.

Duck smiled and nodded his head to show that he would not mind going out again, if Colonel Tigh agreed to the directive. "I can do that Ma'am. I have not had this much fun, in a while. Besides, I could use another hot meal. I got used to the amount of food they gave me last time I had a visit." He looked first at Laura and then at Jammer before taking the offered seat. His grin was getting bigger at the joke he thought he had made.

Laura smiled and returned her attention to the other man. "Jammer, would you please back brief him, on what he will need to know on his trip. And while you're doing that, I need to get some things done to get ready for today's class for the little ones. We don't want the local overseers to think I'm doing something nefarious. Again." She smiled as she rose from the chair, and left the classroom for them to talk. A lot of things needed to get done, and as always. They were always short on time to get done without being spotted. Sometimes the spotter might be a cylon or another human with too much time on their hands.

Soon after Duck and Jammer left the school tent together, just before the first kids had started to arrive for the school day. They still had some notes to compare and would not need little leg leaches under foot. The Ex-President of the 12 Colonies of Kobal tried to remove the two men and their tasks, from her fore-brain. She used as a distraction the worked with the kids that were now under her care to develop their young minds.

She had succeeded at this task. That is right up until one of those monsters walked into her domain threw the half open tent flap. Roslin knew that this was calling herself Caprica Six and she seemed to have stopped by for no reason, which the teacher could work out. The Cylon was watching her closely as Laura went about her daily routine. But so far it had not said anything to her or the kids in the tent. She was standing in the back of the classroom, uncomfortably close to the small table that was blocking the repaired cut in the tent side. Laura had developed a skill of ignoring parents, when they would stop by her classes unannounced. She just tried to do the same thing to the monster in her midst, and not worry about the safety of the kids with the potential danger so close to them. When it was time for the mid-day meal, the female like cylon was still here. She was still watching, when the little ones left the tent having not said one word the entire time she had been there. The kid could now go get some of the limited food supply at one of the kitchens. Or maybe in the rare case, were they slept at night. You eat hot food where you could find, now in days.

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The Number Six walked up to Roslin, when the last of the kids had fled the tent into one of the few clearish days that were on this planet. Caprica Six did not try any tricks on this woman, and even kept her face as still as she could. "Roslin it is so good to see, that your back to doing what you love to do again." The Six was looking as the last and oldest kid who had made a turn and stopped at the tent flap. The look sent to the teenage boy by the very female looking machine, sent the male running again. Roslin did not have a line of sight to see what the blond cylon had done to get that response, and could only wait for the cylon to face her again.

The Six turned again to make eye contact with the once powerful woman. "Kids need to be in school with a high quality instructor, like you. Maybe they can learn from our mistakes, and not repeat them like we did and seem to be doing again." The cylon gave herself a little shake of her slender shoulders. It was a move that was wasted on Roslin. That was because both of the beings in this tent knew deep down, that it was all just another game and for show being run by the cylon. The Six could tell that Roslin was not going to take the bait, as soon as she did the little shudder. She quickly decided to get to the core reason for her visit today. "The reason I stopped by today. Is that I would like to help with the human children's education." The cylon was watching Laura's face very closely as she was talking and analyze ever little movement. "If you can get me a list of things to help with their instruction, or some common things you need? I will see what we have on the Basestars in system, which you might be able to use. I can't promise much, but I will see what I can find that you need. The Ones' are not real happy with me and my line still, but they have some other things to focus on right now. That I hope will distract them for some time away from you all, and of course members of my line. So Roslin, how are things going with your people, I bet you still have your fingers in a few things going on around this place?" Caprica Six waved her arm around to indicate the whole camp and not just the area covered by the tent.

Roslin tilted her head a little to one side and was thinking about every word the cylon had said, and more importantly. She was also thinking about the words it had not said. "Maybe I could get some useful information from this monster." Roslin did not have to think long with her quick mind that had been overdrive all morning thanks to Jammers recharging fruit drink. "Really, what has it decided to focus on now?" Roslin did not have to tell the Six that the IT she was referring to was the Number One called John. As to knowing what is going on around the camp." Roslin shrugged her shoulders and looked away from the Human Form cylon. "I have been staying out of things like running our little camp. I was tired of doing the political thing even before I lost the election to Baltar. I would think, you would have noticed that by now? I have my fill of trying to keep the Fraking wheels from coming off of this freak show. Dealing with younglings is a lot easier." Roslin was putting just a little bit of an off tone to her voice that she hoped the cylon would pick up on. Roslin had some acting skills, which had only gotten better when she moved from teaching into the government. She reinforced what she had said by looking the female like cylon in the eyes. "Teaching kids is a lot easier, and you don't' have to worry, that much about someone sticking a knife in your back when dealing with them."

Now the Six gave a full power and she knew a very sexy smile, which she knew would not work on the human, but she did it anyway. The Six could see right through the line of Frak that she had just been given. She could not prove it, but deep down Caprica Six knew it was a line of Frak. "Now Roslin, please don't play dumb with me. I know you're up to something and more likely up to a lot of something. I have studied everything about you, and I bet I know you better than you even know yourself. It's ingrained into your very basic nature." The smile was still there but more shark like as her tone dropped from maybe friendly to more on the threatening side of tones. "So don't try to Fraking game me Laura, and I will not try to run one on you. Deal?"

The Six could see that the women was about to get defensive, and if Laura Roslin got entrenched? You would have the devil's own time getting through to her again. "Before you even start, no I don't care what you're up to. I will tell you that we, being my people, don't have any proof of anything you might be up to. I'm not looking for any as a matter of fact, but you would have to take my word for it won't you." She was still smiling, and did a hand on the hips move. "I won't take bets on you doing that ether. But as to why that line of cylons is distracted. Well let's just say that something has come up that has them a little upset, even more that what you and Bill Adama have done. I would bet you know more than most about that. But I will tell what I know. Something is killing cylons on this planet, and by killing them. I mean the true death and final death."

The Six was still watching her target, and she thought she was picking up something off the older female. "It's not happening to all of them, but almost all are finding a release somehow, that we had not planned on. John is keeping close hold with most of the information. He shared some of it with only Baltar and his puppet. Those two still do not know all of the fine details, besides some of our people of course and now you Laura." What the Six did not tell Laura, was that her line thought John was keeping a good bit of information from the other cylon lines as well. The Six started to walk around the teaching area touching this and that as she moved.

Roslin was trying to keep calm, but she was not a trained spy. But she had learned the art of Politics on the fly and that was almost as good practices. Someone might have been better than she was, but she was still good at hiding when she needed to and for a short amount of time. "Why don't you just ask them what happened, when they get reloaded into a new body?" She was playing dumb about what the cylon had already said. She knew exactly what the cylon meant by the true death. She wanted to see what else the human form might let slip to her. After all what was the worst thing that could happen by asking? She would not find anything new out if she kept quiet. Or this cylon might confirm what they thought Roslin knew already. In other words, Roslin thought it was worth her time and effort for now. That is if she could keep her cool, and not let her aversion to being near the cylons visibly affect her. That would most likely hurt her chances of getting any good intelligence.

The Six did a super quick turn, and looked into the eyes of the shorter and older human women. She tilted her head to one side, and did not say anything for a few seconds but it was just a game she was playing. The cylon knew exactly and everything that she was going to say to Laura, even before she had made her way down this mud lane to this tent. "Roslin, something on this planet is stopping that downloading from happening on most of the cylons that had been shot. It is almost like something or someone new on this planet is attacking us. And when you die here, it's something like a 90% chance that you will not wake again. We haven't had to deal with something like this since the Revolt of the cylons during the start of our war of independence from you humans." The Six let a snort come out of her mouth, and a sneer cross her lips. "Now it terrifies us, with the thought of not being able to download into a new body and living again. I happen to think it is god's way of paying us back for what we did you humans at the start of this war." What Laura did not know was that what Caprica Six had just said was completely and utterly the truth.

Roslin gave a big smile that was in no way friendly or was it meant to be, and the Six knew it also. Then the ex-presidents let her claws out, to go with the evil smile on her face. "So now you are scared. May the Gods have more mercy on your kind than you kind showed us! Now I have to get back work, and set up for my next set of classes for this afternoon. If your serous about repenting and would like to know what we need. I will see about getting a list for you. I will have a runner pass it to the Centurion post at the end of the lane." She stopped talking and returned the tilted head look and delivered with a flat voice. "Just to let you know. I will be checking it all of it for dangers to my kids, just to let you know. Your people have targeted children before." Roslin's voice now dripped with venom. "You know it, and so do I so don't even deny it!" With her last statement, Roslin turned from the tall blond female looking cylon.

Roslin was fighting a smile even though she knew the cylon would not be able to see her turned away face. "Well now we know have a confirmation, which the information Saul's informant had been passing along was for real and maybe the truth. Now it seemed to have been correct or even somewhat low balled on the importance" thought Roslin. She went about some tasks, but it in reality it was do nothing work in the tent/school. It just happened to keep her away from the human form cylons. All the while Roslin watched the human form cylon out of the corner of her eye. It was some time until the cylon turned, and walked away out of and away from the school tent without exchanging another word with Laura.


	19. Chapter 19 Chapter 10b Guerilla war

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

Still looking for a Beta reader if anyone can help find one, would be very grateful. Hope you like the end of chapter 10. If you have questions please let me know.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 10b Guerilla war**

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It was while Laura was setting at her desk in the main teaching area, when she did start making a list of needed supplies that Caprica Six has asked for. When it would be ready, and she would send a note to the cylon guard point a few lanes over. One thing, which events after the cylon attack had taught her was that you took help when it was safe. So now when someone offered support and supplies, you took them. You inspected the frak out of them, and afterwards if you lived. You would worry about if the price was going to be too high or not. While she was working on the list for the cylons, she had to stop when a member of Saul's group came into the tent. The timing was not perfect but she could work with it. She made sure the kids could not look into her living area, and waved the young man over to look at his task that someone had given him.

He took one look at the pile of supplies still mostly covered by a couple of blankets. Then left the tent mumbling under his breath in a very low tone. It would seem that he had not been warned about the size of the task he had been sent to do. He returned a few minutes later to find that Roslin was still standing by the pile of goodies. Roslin had no idea what the young man had done before he joined up with Saul. To her eyes he seemed very young to be trusted this much in the still growing resistance. Roslin waited for him to say something when he returned and that did not take long. "By the Gods ma'am! Where did you have all of this stuff hidden? I thought by now we would have turned over every trunk and seat looking for anything that might useful as this fraking stuff."

She smiled at the very young man and his two friends standing in her living area. She could not wait to see there expression on their faces. When they found the two broken down rifles and three double barreled pistols, buried under the food and ammunition. She had a part to play and that part was not letting anyone outside a certain group, know what she was up to when school was not in session.

Roslin wave a hand in the air dismissively and even did a single shoulder shrug. "Oh, I have been collecting it for some time. It's mostly from donation from whoever had a little extra, and they dropped it off for me to deal with. I had forgotten about it until last night when I was looking for some teaching supplies." Two of the men started to shove items into two large civilian bags that looked to have started life as luggage of some kind and now being re-purposed like a lot of other things. They looked to have the idea in their heads, of taking all of the items on Laura's homemade sleeping pallet. That was not going to work, and Roslin let an eyebrow raise and put a stop to that, before it got too far. "Gentlemen you're only going to take about half the food items, the weapons, and ammunition. They are for the resistance to hide and store. The rest of the food will be put in the community kitchens for everyone to have access to and not hidden by your group. We have a lot of people who are in need of that food right now." She put her hands on her hips and looked over her glasses at the three men packing. "Am I making it Fraking clear Gentlemen?" She would not have to repeat that directive. She was in full powered, I am the Leader of the Colonies mode. Or the right hand of the Gods if you prefer, but you will obey me!

The three men nodded, and were now very selective on what they were taking off of the bed and putting in there modified carry bags. All of the "fresh" food would be staying, but it if looked like it could store for a longer time, they packed down part of it. But only after making eye contact with the woman in the doorway. They did this every time they had a handful of items that fit that category and they did not see anything wrong with the order. It even never crossed their minds to challenge it in the first place. The last things to be picked up were the three thin coats that she had unrolled to inspect earlier. They packed the cloth coats in around the items like weapons parts and ammunition, so that it would not be seen if anyone did a casual inspection. If they were detained and the bags emptied out? They were going to be in a Frak load of trouble and they all knew it.

When they looked like they were about to leave, she stopped them again. "Please let your boss know that I would like one pistol fully loaded, and one full reload magazine, clip or whatever you call it for the weapon. That is after he has some one check it out. I want to make sure we are not being set up with broken weapons. I all about trusting, but I like to verify when we can." She had not wanted a weapon, but the more she had thought about how she had felt when Jammer had surprised her at o'dark 30. She might fell a little better, if she could have something that would let her take one of those monsters down, before they took down. She knew it was futile, but now that she said she wanted one. She was already feeling better about the idea of having a firearm handy in case she needed the Fraking thing.

The three young men stopped what they were doing and shot looks to each other. Then two sets of eyes looked onto there "leader". He first returned there look and then only nodded at what Roslin had said to them. They did not ask why she wanted a weapon, and the slow nod said that they would pass along her order. She had been the President after all, and now she more highly respected than ever among those left alive one the planet's surface. Now when most people thought about that last election late at night or while they were eating there ever meager meals? They would got the feeling of the grass is also green over the septic tank kind of feeling about who had won the elections. After giving the nod they did not talk about it until they had passed the request along to the gruff former XO of the Battlestar. After the men had left the tent, Laura went back to working on the list of things she could use for her little, but vitally important school. When the kids had returned from there no doubt to small late afternoon meal. She still had things to do that would keep her from thinking about what had been going on the last dozen hours.

After about two hours of work Laura's mind was able to get back to the larger task at hand. She looked up and found the face she was looking for. "Maggie would you please find Cally for me. Please ask her to come over, and that I need some help. If she could." The 12 year old girl was out of the tent like a shot and down the muddy path as soon as Roslin had stopped talking. She was leaving the pair of younger kids, that she had been helping still sitting at the small side table. Roslin had a sly smile on her face for Maggie. She was a good kid, but the reason she was here. Well let's just say that it was not that she liked kids or school for that matter. It was because she had been made to so. It was hopped that she could be kept out of trouble, for like say making tangle foot traps for Centurions…again. Roslin took two steps to one side of the bolt, and went back to her list making. She made sure to add paper to the list, then went about covering the lessons that she had plan to cover for the rest of the class. While she was just starting to wrap one of her teaching points. Cally came in with her young baby on her hip and a slight smile on her face. The two women made eye contact, and the older one pointed to the chair at her desk. Roslin had continued talking to the little ears in the tent and not missed a beat or paused for even a second when the younger woman entered her domain. Cally did not notice the repaired tent sides under the desk while she waited. She would not have known to look, but Cally was the type to always be looking around. That was one of the reasons that she had been an above average Viper tuner on the Battlestar even with so few years on the job.

Once Roslin had come to a natural break point in the lessons, she could let the kids work on individual items that she had given them to do at the start of this long day. She walked up to the young woman that was quickly turning into her most preferred substitute teacher in the entire camp. Before contact had been started by the strangers. Roslin had been planning to start Cally's training to be the only second "teacher" in the camp. Roslin had a "real" smile on when she came over to talk to the younger woman. "Cally would you mind taking the kids outside for the rest of the class day. I was thinking, about maybe take them to the community garden or something like that. They all could use some dirt time. I have to take care of some things that just showed up today, and they just can't wait till I'm done with the little ones." The tone Roslin was using on the younger woman, was the same one that she called her pear to pear voice.

Cally looked up and smiled at Roslin standing ten feet away. It was a happy smile, and not the sad one she normally gave in public. She like being useful, and since she had left the military. She had a hole in her life that had been very hard to feel, even before the cylons had come and made life even harder for them. She had not been feeling like she had been using the time well, that is beside the little one on her hip. She even has some energy in her voice when she replied to Roslin. "No problem Ma'am. I was not doing anything at the moment, and spending some time there would be nice change of pace from me and this little one. Where are you in the teaching plan book? Do you want me to release them to go back home at the normal time?" Cally had done this so many times before, that she knew what questions to ask and what question not to ask. One of those questions she had quickly learned not to ask. Was like what was so important to pull Laura Roslin out of the classroom on such short notice. If Laura wanted her to know, she would tell Cally when she could.

Roslin really like Cally, even if Laura thought that she was a bit crazy. But then again, when you think about it for a long second it was not that odd. All of the survivors were now at least a little bit touched in the head by the Gods now. It was that, are they were already dead one way or the other. "Yes to both, and thank you Cally so much for doing this on such short notice. You're really helping me out of a jam." Roslin was laying it on thick, but Cally had turned into the type of person who needed that bit of handling from time to time. Cally did not "need" it all the time, and after all it was free to use words and oxygen. With this done, Laura turned to the class as a whole taking place under the old military tent. "Class! Miss Cally is going to take over for the rest of the day. You better mind her, or I will hear about it later. I want everyone ready to go to the growing tents or to stay outside in the sun." The school tent was filled with cheers, as the wooden handmade chairs were empty at Viper launching speed. The kids left the little tent and formed a neat line, like they had been trained to do and waited, even if not quit but not that loud either.

Cally was about to head out the still moving tent flap, but stopped and then she quickly turned to face Roslin. She had an odd little frown on her face, and a creased forehead. "Ma'am it really is none of my business. But have you seen the Chief lately?" Cally did not have to say the legal name of the person she was referring to. Only one person was called by that title in what was left of humanity. Not even the Deck Boss of the BattleStar Pegasus and the new Deck Boss of the Battlestar Galactica were called Chief but by his rank and last name. "I haven't seen him in a few days, and that's odd for him. I thought if anyone around here knew if the cylons had picked him up, you might have heard about it." Cally made a face that belied the fact that she still had some feelings for her ex-husband and her former boss.

Roslin had kept a poker face on, and then quickly changed it to one of concern. Roslin kept her face still as she worked through first what Cally had asked her. Than the second thing she had to work through, was what she should tell the young woman. All of this only took maybe two seconds. "Cally after the first few days of the occupation. I have not heard about them picking up anyone else. Well, that is after they grabbed Kara. Most of the time if the cylons pick someone up, they are back home with in a day or so." Roslin let her tone take on a motherly tinge. "But I will ask around, to see if anyone has seen him in the last few days. He might just be deep into the bottle again, you know." This was a cover story that had been worked out, before Tyrol had been sent out of the camp to make contact with the strangers. If things worked out with the strangers, she would straighten out any issues, about what the Chief was doing for the good of the Colonies. Tyrol had been…not held in high esteem after getting out of the military. Laura was hopping that would change in the near future. Without him going and being okay sneaking out of the camp and making contact with who knows what. Roslin thought that it showed more about that man's character than what most of New Caprica thought of him.

Cally did not look like she was that happy with the response from Laura. Cally and the Chief Tyrol had made a nice good couple after leaving the military, at first. When their relationship had failed apart just before the cylons had come back. The entire population of New Caprica had hurt with them as they watched their relationship self-destruct. Laura had always thought that they, still had some strong feelings for each other. It just was not the kind of feelings that you could set up a family around, or at least not a good and healthy family. If there was one thing that Cally wanted out of life? That was a family, and a hopefully large one. "Thank you Ma'am. If you hear anything, could you let me know? It's not like him not to at least try to stop by, and say hi and try be nice." Cally made a not nice face before finishing her thoughts. "That is before he puts both of his boots in his Fraking mouth again." Cally added a slight down turn of her lips on one side of her face, at the last bit of a comment. She did not try to retract it after saying it, and she only had just a little regret saying it out loud. Even then it was only a little bit of a regret.

As Roslin watched Cally leave the tent, behind the wave of leg leaches. "If you only knew what he was up to? You would be very happy for him Cally." thought Roslin, but careful not to let anything show on her face. Just in case Cally made another quick turn and catch the look. To the still retreating back of the younger woman, Roslin called out on last time. "I sure will, and thank you again for looking after the little ones for me this afternoon."

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While Cally was getting the mass of kids moving in the right direction, Roslin went back to her living area off to one side of the teaching area. She peeked back into the main tent to make sure she was still alone, before sealing her area off behind her. She did not want to have any one walking in on her, while she was working. She did not want it to get out, about what she was about to be doing. The last thing she wanted, was people nosing around her school that did not need to be there. She pulled out a worn bed covering, and laid all of the food in the center of the square of extremely worn material. Then Laura rolled it together in a cigar roll. Now she could carry it with the two ends of the covering tied around the back of her neck, and most of the mass hanging down between her stomach and waistline. When she checks herself in the mirror, it kind of reminded her of animal biology class she had given a few weeks ago to some of the older kids. The bed covering looked like a snake that had just eaten a large pig, and then went on to try out how its own tail tasted. If she was had been back on her home planet, it would have looked very out of place. There most people would have assumed she was a homeless person or something equal along those lines. On New Caprica with the shortage of purpose built products. They had to just make do with what they could make, with what was on hand at the time. That meant that she would not draw any unnecessary attention, for the odd shaped bundle draped along her side and midsection. She was just like any of the few hundred other people moving around, the now Colonial prison camp on this cold planet. This was something that she had to do herself, and it was not without some risk.

Roslin stopped at the last tent flap between her and the outside world, before stepping threw the half opened cloth flap. This was to make sure the kids had gone out of sight. Kids like to talk loudly, and she did not want them talking were cylons might hear it, just in case. She did not want anything to raise her profile any higher with those monsters than she had to and in truth already had. There was plenty of time for that to happen later when it might be worth wild to do so. With the exit seemingly clear, she took a deep breath, shoved her hands into the outer pockets of her coat. She stepped into the damp, cold, and muddy path she was committed to this action now. She was causality walking and chatty with people as they came up to her, to wish her well as she walked out in the open air. It was just another day for Laura Roslin in the human camp with the grandiose name of New Caprica. That is if you did not notice the metal Cylons that were standing around at odd intervals along the mud paths running between the grounded spaceships.

Roslin had to make her way to the center of the field, which had been turned into the last known human town in the universe. It was too close to Colonial One for Laura's comfort, but it was where she needed to go and did not have much choose in the mater. She knew right where she was going to, and stopped a few feet away from the grounded spaceship she had been walking towards. The ship was small, and one of the oldest ships to make it to the refuge fleet after the cylon attack. Laura had always found that it was always a pleasant surprise. When it would report in to Colonial One and the shepherding warships after each jump had been complete. She had known that the Cloud 9 had a betting pool going. On how long it would be able to keep up with the rest, of what everyone has started calling the Rag Tag Fleet. Roslin gave a sad smile when she thought about how, everyone had lost cubits, as the venerable ship would report in every time. And now the Cloud 9 was the one ship that was gone, and not the small family owned cargo ship.

Roslin did not realize it, but she had been talking to herself out loud. Before she walked thru the canvas that was draped around the ship to turn the area below the ship into a more use-able space. "I hope the Captain collected on that pool, before the Cloud 9 was blasted." No one heard her, as she was talking to herself. It was common and growing habit among the remaining refugees, thus very few people would have noticed or cared about this new quirk. As a matter of fact the Captain of this family owned ship had placed a small twenty cubit bet. She had collect after every jump, using the same twenty cubit bill as seed money for the fallowing on bet. In other words she had raked up in both credits and other more tangible trade items, before the ship known as the Cloud 9 had been blown apart in a nuclear fireball.

The area under the ship had been turned into some covered and neat living areas, a largish cooking area, and a sit down eating area. It had taken some time to get the cloth material attached but once it was done. It had add a large amount of much needed somewhat heated elbow room for a very low cost. That eating area was also used for mass meeting or even a time or three. An evening entertainment zone for all age groups. That is before the cylons returned and put a curfew in place, stopping that use for the covered area. Laura let her eyes adjust to the lower light level, and then started looking for the person she needed to see. She found the women at the very back of the tent looking at a set of very bare homemade shelves that were free standing blocking off one area from another area. Laura started walking towards the woman with her back towards the covered entrance. When she was close enough that she could talk in a normal voice she called out to the other woman. "Cora, I have been collecting donation at the school for a few days now."

The woman did not turn at the sound of her name and Laura kept building up the cover story she had worked on. "Sorry I did not get them to you sooner. I think these might be helpful and more useful, in your oh so capable hands." Roslin said to the back of the women that she could tell was is some distress. Roslin was thinking that it was probably due to the lack of food, on those very bare wood planks.

Cora was a darker skinned woman than even a Number Four cylon, and smile about as much as one with a toothache. She was the Captain of the ship that they were now standing underneath of. She now turned at the sound of the other woman's voice. She was smoking a round of the local weed and it was hanging out the right corner of her frown lined mouth. The weed had almost the same taste, and affect as very cheap tobacco had back in their home system. Roslin knew that it was very hard to find. But more than one person had a found few places that it grew, and collected it. Those people then would put it up for sale to those that had the habit or simply re found the habit. What would happen now that the cylons had limited movement to the wood cutting detail? Laura was betting that the trade value of that weed had done up. Not for the first time, she was just glad she had her own stash of the things safely hidden away. Cora pulled the burning and smoking thing from her lips, and used two fingers to squeeze out the coal end, and blew out the blue smoke from her lips into the cooler air. She would save what was left for later. When she could enjoy the smoke, even if make the weed taste worse after half burning. Cora thought that it was too expensive to throw any of it away. The non burnt part of the hand rolled cylinder went into her left breast pocket, were it would wait until she wanted to finish the foul smelling thing.

Cora tilled her head to one side, she could tell the Laura was about to drop something major on her. She just did not know what, yet. She almost bit her lower lip before stepping into the abyss that she knew Roslin would have brought in with her. "So what have you got? We can use about everything, food wise." She watched as the younger women untied the bed covering around her neck. With more than a little effort, Roslin put it on the long table that was used for holding the hot food for serving. Cora had seen the roll and she was hoping that it might hold something useful, but she knew it was only wishful thinking. She had no idea how wrong about that bedroll she was.

Roslin did not want to just dump her precious cargo out on the wooden table top into one mass of stuff to be looked at. It was worth a bit of stage play, and with a sly smile and slow moving hands. She stared by pulling out the one pound packages dried fish, one at a time. Real meat Protein had been in short supply every day since the attack, and what the ships had on hand when things came to an end was all they had. The only bodies of water they had found near were the ships had landed, had been clean out of anything like fish, by the end of the about the sixth month of being on this cold planet. Roslin knew that plans had been in the works to send some scouts farther out. They would be going out to see what might inhabit the other waterways farther from this field. But then Baltar had kept coming up with, and successfully selling reasons not to send them out every time.

Now with the cylons back, there was no way that they were going to let humans out of their sight for that long, or go that far from the rest of the group. The cylons for their part, had been making some food supplies available to their human prisoners. It was all algae based protein and pill form vitamins but it was food. No one would starve, if the humans were careful with it. That had been pointed out numerous time by the Number One type cylon called John to everyone who had the guts to ask the monster.

Now if anyone talked about Roslin dumping fifteen pounds of dried fish meat on the community kitchens table? There would be some very unpleasant questions asked about it and to her. Cora would not be the one to say something or let anyone else know where the meat had come from. That could not be said for the other group kitchens, that had popped up to feed the refugees reduced population. That was why she was at this one kitchen, and not those others that were a lot closer to the school tent she ran. That is besides that it had been the first on New Caprica and was still the largest public kitchen in operation. The dried fish would help the needy of Roslin's people, no questions would be asked, and she would be able to keep safely in the background where no one could see her. A Win, Win for everyone involved in this transaction. Later, if things worked out the way that Laura was hoping. She would not need to keep hidden so much of what she was doing, but that was the way it was just going to have to be for right now.

Cora eyes went wide and her eyebrows climbed deep into the black woman's hair line. She then sucked in a lung full of cold air and made a soft screech, when the ex-president pulled out the first package of dried fruit. When the fresh odd shaped fruit bodies started coming out of the folded bed covering. Cora had to pull a chair over so that she could sit down. It was a choice of sit down in the handmade wooden chair, or fall down in onto the freshly scrubbed wooed floor in abject shock. There had not that much fresh fruit available at one time, even before the Cloud 9 had been blown up by a "lost" nuclear warhead. When Roslin had emptied the improvised carrying device on to the long table, she just turned and looked at the other women. Laura was waited for any reply to her "gifts" that she had just pulled if not out of a hat. Then out of something equally strange. If Laura had taken those items on the black market, she could have gotten almost anything she had wanted for them. There would have been a lot of questions, and she might not have lived to see the sun set today. But she would have been a very well off person for as long as it lasted.

Cora seeing that Roslin would not be the first one to talk, decided to go ahead and asks what was on her mind. She had no idea what the fruit was but they were not Colonial. That meant, that somehow the Ex-President had made contact with someone outside of the camp. Cora kept her voice low and she tried to make it sound normal in a not so normal situation. "Well you're full of surprises today aren't you Roslin? I take it someone was able to get out from under the cylon's thumb, and found some items?" Before Laura could say anything or deny how she got the items. The other woman was waving her hands in the air to dismiss her question and halfhearted reply she was expecting to come from Laura. "Never mind, I don't need to know. What I don't know about, I can't tell anyone who might be asking. Do you know if it's safe to eat?" The dark skinned women asked as she pointed to the dried and fresh fruit laid out on the long wooden topped serving table. If anyone got sick because of the strange fruit, it would be her in the firing line not Laura. Cora had a reputation to protect, and having some of the people who relied on you getting sick. Well that could come back on the small cargo ships captain in a number of different and painful ways.

Roslin smiled at Cora, leave it to her to work out the issues and settle on what is the most important to our people. "From what I was told. They were safe to eat, and it was by a person how had eaten them, and had drank the juice for a few days in a row. Also, I did have one of those fresh fruits a few hours ago, and I feel fine so far." Laura gave the ship's commander an evil look to go with a sly grin. "I even have not had to braking into may stash of good toilet paper. The person who dropped them off said that they did some kind of field testing, and it should stop scurvy in its tracks."

Roslin stopped talking, scurvy was starting to show up in the more at risk groups among her people planet side. If this fruit had enough vitamin C, it would be a huge help fighting that disease before it took a hold and ruined people's lives. Now Laura had to tell her of the one side effect that she was told of by Jammer, when the two women had taken out the fruit hours before in her tent. She had to fight a grin when she had a mental image of Saul Tigh having a bite out of one of those fruits, and the reaction it was reported to cause. "I also was told that it does not react well, if someone has been hitting the Ambrosia at all. I was told that even one drink will cause some issues that are unpleasant. It won't kill them, but they will wish they had not hit the bottle for a few days." She looked over the rim of her glasses at the ship's captain/master cook. She had a sly smile on her face, as she went into a little more detail of a story that Jammer had told her about someone who ignored the warnings. Roslin had to fight to keep a straight face as she retold the story.

Cora smiled a slight smile at the ex-leader, but still leader of their people and also had to stifle a snicker at the visuals in her head the story had caused. "Well that lets me know who not to give these to, at least." She stood up and went to the farthest back counter and retrieved rectangle box that was stained, but also had a tight combination locking cover. Cora collected the pile of fresh fruits, and put them into the box. Then she quickly recovered them with the locking lid, make sure the lid was properly secured. This gave her some time to think and plan the change to her menu. "I can give the dried stuff out as desert for kids, and that should keep the scurvy under control, for now. They also don't have much to compare it to with fruits from home. So they should not refuse it, besides the dried fruit just looks like an off white fruit of some kind. Adults might recognize it as not being grown from the home planets, but it will be harder with the dried stuff." She was looking at what was left on the table. "The protein looks like a fish base to me. Is it?" The look Cora gave Laure was punctuated with one raises black eyebrow. It was a good change of subject away from the strange fruits.

Roslin had to think back to what Jammer had told her about the meat, but in the end she just thought about how some of it had tasted to her. "That is what I was told. And it had a fishy taste to me, but I don't know how to compare to what we had back home. It almost like the lake stuff we had, until it ran out." Rosin was lost in thought for a few seconds. "Come to think of it, it has a bit more salty after taste to me." Roslin was not that into gourmet food, even before the cylon's had come back and took away the opportunity to experiment further. She never could understand how some people could pick out were a certain ambrosia was made, or what was used to make any given dish at dinner. It was food and drink, and as long as it was cooked the way she like it. Well that was good enough for her and she felt too old to want to change.

Cora was deep in thought again, and did not immediately replay to Roslin. She made a note to try the "fish" when she was alone. She was betting that the "fish" was either cured in salt, or it might be an ocean caught animal. "Okay I hate to do this, but I can mix it with the algae base protein I already have on hand. It will give a better taste, I mean it's not like it could taste much worse, could it. That will stop anyone from asking where it came from, if they don't know it's there in the first place." She was thinking before speaking again. "If I do that, then I can even spread it out for a few days, maybe I can even stretch it for as long as a week." Cora stopped talking for and looked around at the fifteen packages on the table in front of her. She gave a slight negative shake of her head. "No, if I do that. Someone one might find out that I have some real meat in stock. If I hold onto it for too long, someone is bound to see it, and start flapping there gums. So maybe just try to use it all up in three meal days before any issues crop up."

Cora took one of the packages of fish, and opened the package with a small folding knife she pulled from a hip pocket. She first took a tentative sniff, and then a full pull of air threw her nose to get a better idea of the smell. Then Cora gave the package a soft toss into the air, and it landed quietly on her open palm with a dry pop sound. "It's about two pounds maybe less, I would have guess it was only a pound or so." She looked around the table. "I can use two packages, put about half in each of the four serving and heating pots. That should give them a nice flavor, after they re hydrate. Hmmm I will have to make sure to chop them up real good, so that the chucks are as small as possible. Do I want to do that while there dry or after they soften? Better do it while they are dry in case they come apart while cooking, and I miss a good sized chuck. Yep that is a plan." She looked back at Roslin, and concern colored her voice. With a raised eyebrow she was not a Ships Mistress again. "Are you're really sure you want me to have the whole lot. It looks like we can store this stuff for some time, in the right place. You know in case of trouble later, and we need it." She did not even have to come close to the words like hide and cylons. She did not need to, to get the idea across.

Roslin gave a knowing sly smile, and did not reply immediately to what Cora had implied. She did not let the silence last too long. "Cora, you know me." She did not have to say more, because the other woman smiled back at her. Cora now knew that some of the dried food was put away somewhere safe, in case of unforeseen emergency. The two powerful women spent some time talking, while the head of the kitchen took care of putting up the new supplies in places that no one would think to look. While they were talking the cook took care of adding some of the new found bounty into the four large pots of simmering algae, water and limited spices heated by a hardwood fire. This would be the dinner meal for a large part of the remaining people in the camp tonight. The chatting was friendly, and served its primary purpose. That was as camouflage to why she was there in the first place. It also helped Roslin keep a feel on what was going on in the camp as a whole, without being obvious about it. People like to talk when they eat, even more than they did if they were drinking. All you need to do, is just ask any waitress they will tell you.

Cora saw that the Ex-President was about to get up to leave her establishment before it got too late in the day. Cora took the opportunity for a task to be done, that she would have to have tracked down someone else to do for her. She also knew that it would help build a cover story that Roslin could us to her benefit. "Roslin, how about you take some of this modified stew with you for dinner tonight? After all it's because of you, that it will be better for everyone one night." Cora kept her face still as she dropped her bombshell of a request. "Oh and If you don't mind. Could you drop some of it over at Saul and his wife place for me? He has been so busy lately. That he will for get to eat, and I don't think his wife would remind him to eat much less go get himself some food. I know his wife will remember to drink, but not eat." She did not wait to see if Roslin would agree to her question or not. Cora just went about making, and covering three large bowls of the fortified gulp. This would be what Roslin would be carrying with her, when she left the covered soup kitchen.

When Roslin was handed the three bowls with sealed lids Cora had already tie them together so that would not slip out of her hands. Roslin looked at the hot food and looked back up to the tall woman. "Thank you Cora, I will drop it off on my way back to my tent." Cora walked with the other women to the main tent flap, and saw her on her way down the muddy path. Cora did a quick scan of the path, and saw that the three metal cylons. They were still standing in the location, which they had chosen to occupy as a watch point on the second day of the occupation. When they did not start to fallow the former leader, Cora smiled to herself. She retreated back to the work that still needed to be done at the back of the spaceship roofed tent kitchen. She only had about an hour before the people would start filtering to have a hot meal. The slow part of Cora's day was almost over. She would be busy from then until just before the start of the cylon enforced curfew. Of course after everyone had left her tent she would have to clean up the place. With a slight chuckle she remembered, that was why she had a crew of people. They could do that kind of work, and not even needing to be supervised that closely.

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Roslin had the bed covering draped over her shoulders to make it look more like a shawl instead of a carrying device or blanket. It both freed up her hands, and it provided a little extra warmth in the now rapidly cooling evening air. When asked what she was doing by people she passed on the mud lanes that were the movement arteries of the camp. Roslin would tell the people the truth, and that she was asked to drop some hot food off at Colonel Tigh's place by Cora. She was not always asked by those passersby, but it happened enough. That it would build or reinforce the good cover story that Cora had set up for her to use. She only picked up her slow walking pace, when she noticed that the food she was carrying might be starting to get cold. It would be a shame to the Gods. If the first time real fresh protein was available in some time, and it was allowed to get cold.

Saul and Ellen Tighs home was not visibly indistinguishable, from any of the other hovels on both sides of this muddy path that Laura Roslin was walking down. That mud lane serviced as access ways to them, and the grounded ships around the shacks. Roslin walked up to one that she knew was the right one, and since you could not "Knock" very well on fabric. She called out instead in a voice she knew would carry to the end of the wooden shack and maybe just a bit further. "Saul, Ellen anyone home? It's Laura with something from Cora's kitchen she wanted me to drop off for you two." Laura looked left and right after announcing herself. She did not sure if she was looking for cylons, the Tigh's, or someone else that might be watching this shack.

Roslin's head snapped around viper quick. When a voice that was responding to Roslin she knew was defiantly did not belong to any of the two people she was looking for called back from. "What? What one minute." It was quit again in the sack that she was facing. Roslin was still standing outside in the mud, and setting cloud covered sun as she waited. The only thing that was moving, and it was moving at just under the speed of light, was Roslin's very active and quick mind.

Roslin waited for a bit of time but she did not run. She knew that the voice she had heard was not from one of the human form cylons. That did not mean that she knew who the voice had come from, but it was not a cylon voice. Then the tent flap finally opened to reveal another ex-member of the colonial military her tension evaporated like a snowflake in Hades. Roslin knew his face, but she could not remember if she had ever formally met the young man or not. She also had no idea if he was one of the few humans working with the cylons or not. Roslin quickly decided that she needed to play it off to protect her cover story. "I'm sorry. I was bringing some food over for Saul and Ellen. Would you mind keeping it warm, until they have come back home?" As Roslin was talking the young man had kept looking to his left and right. It was like he was expecting a cylon combat company to come rolling down the mud lane at any second. This did not make Roslin feel any better and she was working out how to politically walk away from this event.

Finally the young man move farther out of the shack, and into the streets. He now was able to look around the block caused by Roslin's body. He seemed to be more than a little flustered by her being there, but not seeing any additional cylons let the blood come back to his young face. They young man started to talk in a very low voice, or more to the point. He was trying to talk, and not doing that great of a job doing that. "Ahhhhh, hummm, Mrs. President, why don't you come in the Colonel will be back after a while." The young man was looking left and right so fast that he might have been hurting his neck doing the motions. "You might want to wait for him, inside. I'm sure he would like to visit with you when he gets back." The last bit had been in a different tone of voice than the beginning, as the young man got himself under control.

"Now that was odd", thought Roslin as she picked up on the changing tone of voice coming from the young man. She had two choices in her mind. She could enter the shack, or go back to her tent. Roslin nodded her head and took the invitation to enter the handmade home. "Okay" and she entered the tent, by walking past the younger man almost blocking the entry way. They young man was half way blocking the entrance of the shack, with his body and half opened overcoat. Roslin noticed this and made a mental note of it, but did not know if that was a good thing or not.

The younger man was still looking out the tent flap of Colonel Tigh' shack, when he called back to Roslin over one shoulder. "Ma'am why don't you have seat over by the cabinet, till the Colonel gets back?" The tone was softer now. Like the speaker was trying to make it, so that only she would hear it but he failed. Roslin did as she was asked, and waited for the young man that was still keeping an eye out the tent flap for any cylons. Roslin started looking around this room of the shack. This was not the first time she had been in this dwelling, but it had been a few months since her last visit. She could see, right off the bat. That the hidden hatch to the "Basement" of the tent was not covered as well as it should have been. It was clear to her that this person was not read in on, that she knew about the little hide away below Saul Tigh's living quarters. It was not her place to let that little secret out, so she just waited. She made sure that she ignored the laps in camouflage of the hidden ladder. Small talk was not exchanged as the young man kept an eye out by peeking out into the mud lane by a little opening in the tent flap.

It was sometime later, maybe an hour or so. When the tent flap flew open, and a gruff bald man stormed into the tent with a full head of steam pushing him along. "Gods' this place is wet and cold! Why the Frak did we have to stop here. That Fraking Racetrack is trying to put me in an early grave." He slapped his hands together and a light cloud of dust few off of them, into the air of the small shack. Saul Tigh was not looking around as he entered, and did not see Laura at first.

The young man jumped to the front arc of the bull rushing man, so that he could "see" him and get the old war horse's attention as quickly as he could without having to use a lead pipe. He was trying to stop Saul Tigh from letting anything out in the open air, which he might not want to do jest yet. It would not have been the first time that he had done something like that. "Sir! You have a visitor!" The young man had to use his outside voice, to overpower the normal speaking volume of the older man in this confined space. Laura was keeping her face still, but she was enjoying the show being put on in front of her. Good entertainment was so hard to find these days.

Saul was stunted for a quick second and he did not say some much as a word, now that he was '"seeing" the guard he had left in his home. "Who the Frak would be visiting me! And this close to the Fraking curfew?" Saul used his arm to bodily move the younger man out of the line of sight, which the younger man was blocking between him and the woman sitting down. "Oh it's you Roslin. Ahh Wrench. I will cover the rest of your shift. Why don't you go get you some food? I hear the slop at Cora's place is amazingly good tonight. At least it is good for slop that we have to eat. If you hurry, you might be able to get some. Before the rest of the camp finds out that she found a supply of salt, and whatever else she is using to make the algae slop worth eating tonight."

Wrench look at the ex-president and then the colonel, but the pull of food. Much less good food was hard to resist for the young man, but he still did not bolt out the tent flap right away. "Are you sure Sir?" The longing in the young man's voice audible to the rest of the room, it was betraying his work ethics. If Saul changed his mind, Wrench would have stayed on duty, until five minutes before curfew was supposed to start again. He was now hoping that the former second in command, of what was left of the Colonial Military would not change his mind. He knew that he had food waiting from him when he would have gotten to where he was living. It would not be called hot, warm, or even good to eat. It was food and he would not have gone to bed hungry tonight.

Saul's face turned red then he pushed his lip out a little, but he did not use his outside voice at the young man this time. Saul rarely had to have to tell someone, something twice. Not even on his most mellow days did he enjoy doing it. "Get the Frak out of here you young whelp, and get some hot food before it's all gone." Saul then smiled as the man shot out of the tent like a launching Viper out the side of a BattleStar. Saul was giving a soft laugh to the now gone trooper's back and a very smug look was plastered on his old face. "I still got it. Nice to know, that I can still light the fire under these younger ones." He had no idea that he had not only said this out loud, but loud enough for someone else to clearly overhear it. He turned slightly and looked at the woman sitting at the table with three medium sized bowls on it. He miss read the look she was giving him and repeated himself. "It's nice to know that I can still but the fear of me into these younger Fraking kids, even if I'm not on the bridge of a BattleStar anymore."

Roslin looked up at the bald man from her seated position. "Yes Saul you can still scare kids." She had started talking in a mocking tone, and then quickly changed back into a more professional tone to cover more serious subjects. Where is Ellen? And where have you been? I was about to leave, no matter what that young man might have thought." Roslin knew she had a Raptor load of work to do when she got back to the school tent, and she was short of sleep. That mix did not leave her in the mood to waste time, just sitting on her hands in a cold tent/shack for very long.

Saul made a twisted lip face as he took the questions from the person. That to not put too fine a point on it, was in fact his boss. "Only the Gods Fraking know where that women is!" He pointed to the bowels. "I take it, I know why everyone has been raving about the slop coming out of Cora's pots tonight?" Saul had not been that happy when the three runners had brought in all of those supplies, and they had been told that a lot of food had been left behind. One of the main problems about getting someone outside of the cylons eyes was how to feed them, after they had left the camp. There were very few survivors that had any wild woodlands survival experience. Then there was the other issue. What if the cylons got mad, and reduced the amount of food coming out of the base ships. What was left of the Colonies would be in a lot of trouble, very quickly.

Roslin did not smile at the military man. Saul liked being a pain in the butt, and he like it even more. When he found out that he had been caught being an ass in the first place. If they had any physiologist left, he would have been a prime subject to study or….. shot on sight. Roslin thought that it would depend on the day and mood of the subject. She used a more level voice to defend her actions, which she did not regret. "What I didn't have sent over here for you to take care of the storing, I gave to her. It was so that some of those in need could have a shot at a full stomach and it not kill them. Or that they would have to sell their souls to the cylons to get. I kept only fifteen packages of protein, and all of the fruit. Most of the fruit was fresh and we can't long term story it anyway. Besides, now I think we now have the answer if these people will help us or not."

Saul just snickered and picked up a bottle from the table that was clear, and not water. He took a long pull from the bottle, before he reset the cork and put the bottle back in its place. He had suspected pretty much of what she had done, and why she had done it. He decided now was a good time to change the subject. "Why don't you come down, and see what we have been up to?" He waved for her to fallow him.

Saul turned from the table, and walked to the not so covered up trap door mounted in the floor of his shack. He stopped at the trap door, and muttered something about doing a better job of hiding the access point, then with a head shake. He opened the hidden cover and turned a half turn to line up on the ladder not visible from where Roslin was sitting. He went down the wooden ladder with an ease of repeated use. Roslin was only a couple seconds behind him, when Saul made it to the bottom of the homemade ladder that descend below ground level of the surrounding area. Saul had just moved to one side when her shoes were at bold head height. After both of them were on the dirt floor, Saul pulled a lever that pulled a cover back over the exposed trapdoor. It was now concealing it from view, if anyone looked in to the now empty shack over their heads. It would not stand up to a full blown or detailed search, but it would be some protection for the hand dug basement. A pair of lights that had come off one of the grounded ships provided light to see by, and a nearby ship was supply him the limited amount of power they needed. The lever that moved the cover over the trap door also activated the lights in the dirt walled basement.

"So what do you think about what we have been up to Roslin?" Saul turned around in a small circle with his arms outstretched. Roslin had been down here before, but it had been months ago. Now she could tell that there had been changes, since the last time she had come down those steps. After the cylons had come back, they had searched the whole camp top to bottom with a fine tooth comb. They had paid real close attention to anyone who had been or connect to the Colonial military or government in any way, but they had found nothing in Saul's shack. They had not found this room; after all Saul had not been hiding were he had set up his still. What he had been doing, was hiding where he had his mash tanks from "spies". Now the basement was the collection point, for anything that they might need to fight the cylons later.

Roslin looked around the dirt walled hole that was about sixteen feet long by sixteen feet wide. The only thing she noticed was that it was now a bit longer on one its axis's, and one side now was lined with rough cut wood shelves with odds and ends on their shelves. But it was not that noticeable different since the last time she had been down here. Saul seemed very was proud of his work, so Roslin did not want to offend him. Suddenly she had the feeling that she might be missing something. "So Saul how have you been able to do this, and keep the tin heads from finding it?" She was just talking about the hole in the ground, but if you wanted to hear something else. A lot of time your brain would fill in the blanks on what you wanted to hear.

Saul smiled and it looked strange, to borderline freighting the crap out of somebody never how had to deal with him before. He pointed to the one wall with the shelving unit against it. "We rigged this fake wall and shelve unit. I pushed it back into place when I had to run an errand. When it's in place and locked, you can't' see what we don't want the cylons to see, when they find this basement. I'm not going to make it easy for them but the cylons will find in sooner or later." Saul moved the odd contraption to demonstrate it to her what he had been saying. When the wall like shelves was in place, it did indeed conceal the weapons and food that had been hidden behind it. He then moved it back to into its holding spot, and you could not tell it had moved at all. Saul showed her how to pull the hidden lever, and the wall was able to spin open with only about ten pounds of force. It was an impress amount of thought and engineering put into something that looked so rustic.

Roslin was looking and walking around the bigger area that was behind the now fully opened swing wall unit. When she made a sharp turn to one side in the hidden area, it turn out the basement had a second secret that it was hiding very well. In the hidden underground area there was a tunnel that was being dung into the ground off to one side of the basement. Roslin was stunned at what she was seeing and that tone colored her voice. "Why and when did you start this Saul?" She looked around the almost circular five foot wide hole running deeper into the clay and rock until it was lost in the dark of the excavated tunnel. Before Saul could answer the first question Laure hit him with another one after only a few seconds of not saying something. "How are you getting rid of the dirt you pulling out of this?" She pointed around the area the pair of them was standing in. It was an amazing bit of work to both been done with only hand tools, and trying to keep it secret from both the cylons and the other humans in the camp. Roslin put one hand on of the wood bracing at the mouth of the dark tunnel. The wood braces had been placed about every ten feet going into the arched darkness. They were there to keep the soil, and people over head from falling in to the newly made cavity under there unsuspecting feet.

Saul smiled at the women, as she did turns around and looked at every wall of the new excavated hidden room. "I remembered reading something one time, about an escaped from a prison. The Fraker carried dirt and rocks from the tunnel he dug out in his pockets. Then the little Fraker would spread it around the work yard, a few handfuls at a time. I made a few modifications to the core idea as I remembered them and Frak me, if it did not work. We also have few more people than he did, and thanks to the few modifications. Let's just say we can move a lot more crap in day." He opened his coat to show two long bags that to end in funnels to show what he had meant. "This is how we can move more dirt. We work until we have a few full sand bags each, of dirt ready to get rid of. Then we go walk around the area and dump it into the mud, a little at a time as we walk. That was what I was doing when you stopped by, and I was not here. I was finishing up another load of dirt dumping before curfew set in. That was why I was not here when you stopped by. I was dumping another hundred pounds of the Fraking stuff over by one of the public kitchens." He was smiling inside, had thought that all of the people coming and going in the slop kitchen would beat the dirt into the mud quickly. He was thinking that by the time he had finished the dumping it was already beat into the rest of the mud.

Roslin was looking at the tunnel that was about five feet tall, four feet wide and looked to be about over thirty feet deep from where she was standing. That was about as far as the light beam would go that Saul passed to her. She did not know how much dirt that was but, it must have been a lot, that they had moved and dumped all ready. "Saul that is a lot of dirt you had to have moved. By the way, you still haven't told me why you and your friends are moving it in the first place? The hiding area, I understand. But this?" She raised one eye brow to punctuate the statement with an arm wave to point in the general direction of the tunnel. Saul did not tell her everything, and she did not tell him everything she was doing. IF the cylons picked one person up, not all of plans would need to be changed so that the cylons would not blow them all apart

Saul looked a little down as the barrage of questions assaulting him coming from Roslin. He had thought that it was obvious, what he and his people had been breaking there backs doing for the last week was for. Then his lips turned down on one side of his face as he realized what he had over looked. "I was so busy patting myself on the Fraking back, I forgot that part. We have about a dozen people digging each day, and most of the times they even stick around after that fraking curfew to fill more bags. We are using a cover of a low stakes Triad game for the people coming in and out of my home all the time. We even have a game table set up, that we keep going after the horn blows." He gave a smile that was all off yellow teeth, but had hate filled his eyes with an ugly fire that few would have noticed. Roslin did and for a long second she was worried about his sanity…again. "We even had two of those Fraker stop by last night. They said that they wanted to play a few hands of cards with us." Saul could see Laura eyebrows start to climb at that bit of news. Saul raised one hand up with it palm out to stop her from asking the question he knew was coming.

Saul let a smirk cross his face. "No one would play a hand of cards with them, and think the gods, after a few hours they left us alone. Maybe next time I will let them play, just so I can take some of their money. I just need to find another player that was as good as that crazy Fraker Starbuck was, so that we might have a chance to win against those fraking machines." He was scraping a bit of his skull with a dirty finger nail, thinking that maybe he should have cut her a little more slack about things. Then again maybe not, she was a handful and crazy as a bag full of cats loaded up on catnip. He gave himself a slight shake, thinking about what that note for Felix had told him. Now they knew that she was still a live and even killing the odd human form cylons. The question was how long she would be able to continue doing that in whatever prison cell they had her in. He had no idea how long anyone could keep that up. He knew from his military training and that the old school officers had to go through. That every person had a breaking point, but he also knew that Starbuck was one of the most stubborn people he had met in his life. That was saying something with the likes of Bill Adama on that mental list of mule's class of headstrong people.

Saul Tigh looked up and made eye contact with Roslin and had put his poker face back on. "As to the why I thought of it?" Saul shrugged both is shoulders. "That was when I had started looking at it as an escape route, on the very first day those Frakers landed on us. It all happened so fast, that I could not get out of our camp, before those Frakers locked us down. Now that we have someone with firepower on the other side of the controlled area, we had someplace to go. I started putting more effort into getting it done." Saul stopped talking and gave a slight head shake. "Well, instead of being Wildman again, what do you think, can an old Fraker man like me can pull of a loincloth?"

Saul had been joking but the look on Laura's face was one of pure horror at the thought, and even her practiced face could not hide it. That was enough of a reply to his statement, that he continued speaking. "Yea well, maybe not. Anyway I started thinking about it the first day and when they did not find my "basement" after a few days. I started really trying to work out the details, while they were holding me. I came up with the idea about the Triad game as a cover a while ago. But I did not think it was worthwhile to risk more people to help with the idea. That is until Duck came back with that translation device. If it was only me doing the digging down here, I would not need the game. More people means, we could move more dirt in the same amount of time. And now I think we need a safe way to move stuff into the camp. They are still going to have to be do the smuggling on someone's back, but when this is done they will not out do it the open. It is only going to be a matter of time before someone Fraks up, and is caught by the toasters. I also still want to be able to get people out from under the cylons control."

Saul stopped talking when he saw Roslin's head snap up and look at him in the eyes. He knew what she wanted to say. He also knew that she was not going to like what he was going to have to tell her. "We're not done, not by a fraking long shot, but were getting longer each day. So what do you think?" Saul was proud of what he and his little group of people had done of their own accord and in secret.

At first Roslin had no real idea on what to say, and it took her a little bit of time to get her thoughts together. This was one of the rare times, that she had been caught comply flat footed. Thankful this time she only had an audience of one when it happened. "Well Saul, I have no idea if it will work or not. But if you think it will keep some of the hot heads occupied doing something that won't get them killed as easily as they might stumble into. Then I say, stay with it. You never know if it will work long term or not. I was going to ask you about ideas on how to get more stuff into our prison. This is as good as any idea I have had, and now that I think about it. Sooner or later someone is going to get caught leaving or trying to come back in by the cylons." Roslin stopped talking, and her jaw slammed shut with an audible click. Roslin took a few steps deeper into the young tunnel, but she still could not see the end. "Do you know how long it will take to get to wherever you think it will be safe, to come up for air?"

Saul tilted his head and blinked. That was a good question, and one he had thought about it often enough. But he had come up with exactly the same answer every time. "I have no idea. So far the hardest part has been finding the material to shore up the roof of the tunnel as we go. I have that fixed now, at least I think I do. I will be getting about ten percent of the next few loads of wood that the detail is bring in. They will be cutting them into the right sized planks for us to use down here. After I get a bit of a stockpile of cut planks, I will be getting few planks per tree log that comes in. Now we should be able to speed up the task, but I don't know how fast we will be able to work. Now if we can keep going, we need to dig about 900 more feet in a straight line. I think that will put the tunnel behind a thickish bush line that drops out of line of site to the camp." Saul was pointing down the dark tunnel in the general direction of the edge of the field were all of the Colonial spaceships had landed. "If we can come up behind that bush line, than it's only about another 800 feet or so of pretty good cover. That cover should be good enough people can stay in, and not be seen by anyone in this Fraking field. All the way to the nearest set of trees, I think that should be enough to do the job." Saul was thinking again as he ran the plan threw his head checking it for problems he might have missed all of the other times he had rerun the idea. "As we are working, I might start looking around for some help. I have no idea about this stuff. If I can find anyone who knows what the Frak to do, I'm dumping this on to them to do." The ex-Colonial military man gave a huge shrug of his shoulders. "Or I will just keep trying to wing it. One way or the other, I want to get this thing done.

He stopped talking again, and looked back down at the woman he had tried to arrest once upon a time. "As to when we get there? Well we will get there when we get there and not a second before. I don't have a date set. As long as we get there, and don't get caught by the cylons, or killed by a cave in. I'm all fraking good with it." He gave a soft snort threw his nose. "It's not like we are trained miners or anything Laura." He looked up at the roof of the dirt floored basement. "I think we need to go back upstairs before some comes looking for us, or Ellen comes back. She will eat all of the food you were kind enough to bring over, all by herself." The last was said with a smile on his old face, but it had a sharp bite that he did not cover very well. He had not wanted that bite to come through his words, and let Laura know that he and his wife were having some issues. Well more issues than normal for them anyway.

Roslin nodded but did not say a word, she did not let on that she had picked up on the tone. As far as she was concerned, how a couple handled internal issues was completely up to them. She fallowed Saul up the homemade stairs/ladder to the living area above them. She watched him as he covered up the hidden floor mounted door, and check for signs for dried dirt around the area. When he was almost done Roslin turned on the hot plate on one side of the large room. This was what people who had one, used to cook on when not in a grounded starship. They soon had two warm bowls again, and were eating while the third bowl was warming on the twin heating plate device. Roslin was thinking about how much she missed her DARDIS range. Roslin did not like the way her minds was going and came up with a way to divert those thoughts.

Between a spoon full of lukewarm protein algae and fish, Roslin took the time to bring something up to the ex-military man sitting across a rickety wooden table. "So did you get may message about checking out the weapons that came in, and that I wanted one of them? Also did you let Duck know I wanted to see him tonight?" Roslin was watching Saul Tigh to try to a feel for how he was going to answer her.

Saul looked at the school teacher as he slurped on his own soup. "I did to both. They all were in working order, but we were not able to check the ammunition. That tends to make a lot of noise when you do something like that, which I did not want to mess with. We are checking out each round and the last I checked they were about half way done. So far they have the mass that seems right, but we won't know if it's sabotaged until we put a round or two down range. We did clean the weapons and ammunition, but they were for the most part the weapons had not been fired since their last cleaning. They had some dirt, mud and in one case blood on their outside of the weapons. I have no idea where the weapons came from originally, but they are Colonial Military standard. More to the point they are as near as we can tell. That is without having the Colonial Military procurement database to check there registry numbers against. I wish we could test fire them, but that is out of the question." Saul stopped talking again; he was not comfortable putting his life on the line with untested weapons and ammunition. He was able to get his mind back on track after a little bit of good old fashioned wool gathering. "What I don't know is why you want one all of the sudden? You know what will most likely happen to you, if those Frakers find you packing it." It was posted what would happen, if the cylons caught someone with a weapon. It had said that they would be "arrested and interned until further notice. Most took that as meaning they will drag you off and shoot you.

Roslin set her spoon down on the local wood made eating table. She was not going to cover why she wanted the weapon at first, then she mentally relented. And she would tell him what she had changed her mind to. "I was thinking that we might be having more of our people working on getting things back into the camp. I already have a high traffic flow coming into the school, so it could cover a few extra people that were not looking for an education. If that is the case, then I want whoever is going to be doing the trafficking to have the weapon. I think they will need to have some way to defend themselves if things go wrong while they are on this mission for us. That is when someone rotates out. The next person will get the firearm. At first I was thinking about keeping it for myself, when I sent word to you. Now it does not make since to waist a very limited resources like that. That is unless you have a different idea, then I'm all ears. And yes I do understand that if I'm caught then a weapon. That if they don't shot me, then I will be right next to Starbuck wherever they put her." Roslin had kept her voice level and had maintained eye contact with Saul.

Saul did not like what he was hearing, but he could not come up with another idea, or even a better one. He had been spending a bit of gray matter on that particular subject already. He could not think of a better person, to be the point of contact for the smuggling, and dividing the supplies that would fallow. The problem was having someone everyone would trust, until they could get a pattern set up. The breakup of the limited supply had to be done in suck a way, that each of the groups could have some support. That was why she was the accepted leader, of what remained of the human race. All most all of the people in the camp trusted her with everything up to and including their lives.

Saul knew what he needed to do. "No Laura, I don't have a better idea. Here you go." Saul reached behind his back, and under the three layers coats he was wearing. He pulled out a double barreled pistol, and slides it over to the woman across the table from him. It was the smallest type of pistol sidearm that the Colonial Military used. It was in fact the same type of weapon that was given to Viper pilots and officers due to is small and compact size. The upper barrel of the weapon was great for use against humans, and the large bore lower barrel was designed to take out old style Centurions with its single shot. In short it was a powerful handgun and weapon of war.

While the military weapon was sliding across the table top, Saul was still talking. "We are still short military quality ammunition, so I only want to give up one load magazine for it. After it's turned in after each run that they come back, we can top off any spent round from our core stock. I don't want them thinking they can take on a few cylons, and not thinking about being that they should be sneaking around. If they are picked up, we only lose what they have left in the weapon. It's a bit cold blooded, but I just don't have any ammunition to waste or risk that way."

Saul could see that Laura was nodding her head in agreement to what he had said. "If our new friends can come up with some more reloads or more captured ammunition. I still want only to give you that one spare fully loaded up magazine. It would be nice if you could re enforce to them before they make each run that they are supposed to be sneaking around. And not getting into firefights with the cylons. So they should not need that much reloading on our part. We also will be setting up two other cache sites, to act as back up storage areas. This is just in case this one is found out by the cylons, and I don't want all of our few eggs in one basket. We are still looking at a few sites but we are only looking, until we see some more Fraking stuff and not word of mouth maybes."

Roslin reached out and took the weapon. She made sure the weapon was set to safe before hiding it under her own inner lay of coats. "It might be a little premature on having the two other sites, but it would be better to have them already scouted out. And not need them, and then to need them on short notice and not have them already looked over." While she was adjusting her outer coat to cover the little weapon. She remembered that she had for gotten to pass along one bit of information. "Oh Saul, by the way, those three long coats that where sent over? They are supposed to be some kind of body armor, that can stop Centurion arm mounted weapons for a few burst." She had a sly smile on her face, which was hard to read by most people. "So I would not put them in the clothes donation box just yet. Jammer said he saw them in action." Laure did a little shoulder hunch. "So I tend to agree with him at this point. I think we will need to know more about this to be sure. For right now, I think that any clothes that come in from our smuggling operation should be separated, and put aside for now. Just in case they are close to be as good as they are saying right now." Before she could say more movement caught her eyes at the tent flap to would allow entrance to Saul Tigh's residence.

Roslin stopped talking when Ellen Tigh almost fell through the tent flap in a tornado of failing arms, legs and clothes. Roslin could swear that she could smell the Ambrosia radiating off of the other woman from across the tent that separated the two. Ellen did on like Roslin, and the same could be said about Roslin feelings towards Ellen. It had been from almost day one, that she was told the XO of the escorting BattleStar wife, had been found on one of the civilian ships packed decks. Roslin still could not figure out how come she had not come forward earlier. After all, she had to know that the only BattleStar that anyone knew about had the same name as her husband's last ship. Ellen was still staggering, and with not as much slurring of her speech she addressed the room as you would have expected. "So what have you two be doing in my own house, while I was out supporting my family?" The tone was pure acid sounding, even with the heavy slurring caused by too much liver killer ingested, in way to short amount of time between sips. In other words it was just like almost every other day for Ellen Tigh.

Roslin did not rise to the offered bait being dangled before her. She merely hit the drunken woman, with a well-practiced schoolmarm look. Roslin tried to defuse what could quickly become an explosive situation if it was not handled with extreme care. "Ellen, Cora asked me to drop of some dinner to you in Saul when I went to pick something up for me. You were not home, and I did not want to eat alone. So Saul and I decided to have some protein algae soup, and have a little visit to mask the taste." She pointed to the bowel that was still on the warmer plate. "Yours is still on the warmer for you to have tonight." She looked back at Saul and decided it was time to go. One of the people who were not aware of Laura's roll in the resistance to the cylons was Ellen Tigh. Roslin did not like running from a problem, but she was old enough to know that sometimes you just had to avoid a problem by walking way. "Saul, thank you for letting me have dinner with someone, other than myself tonight. I still have to make a stop before curfew call to night and it's time for me to go. Good to see you again Ellen. Have fun with your budding Triad games empire." Ellen was stunned, and was working to pull out a snappy comeback, but she was having a hard time of it. The only thing she could do was stand in one place, and try not to rock back and forth too much. It was very rare for someone to get the last word in on Ellen Tigh.

Roslin rose before the other woman could try to fire off a reply. She waved back to both of them, and walked out of the tent flap without looking over her shoulder. She could hear the raised voiced in the tent as she walked away in the muddy path. She hated just leaving Saul to handle her, but if she stayed any longer. She was thinking that it would have only been turned out worse, at least in her opinion. She really did not have anywhere else to go, but she did want to see a few more people now that she had some free time. That is before she had to call it a day, due the approaching cylon enforced curfew and hopefully one final meeting. She was just thinking that maybe she should have kept one of those odd fruits that did not react to will to those that like to drink, and give it to Ellen as a peace offering. She thought to herself and it brought a sly smile to her lips. No one ever said that Laura Roslin did not have a mean streak; it was just that she kept it well hidden….. most of the time.

###############

The next evening Duck stopped by the school tent. He had been asked to show up at this time by a message that had come from Colonel Tigh to him. He knew why he had been asked to come over, without it needing to be put in a note or talked about in anyway. That bit of information had come from Jammer, not to long after sunrise. But before he walked into the tent, he did not know how he would answer the coming or expected requests, which would be soon made of him. He was hopping that he could hold out. That way it would take some convincing to do, what he was expecting to be asked to do again. He was about to have to risk his life again. If he had been alone, or even if he had been on a warship. Then he would have no problem doing something like that, he was a patriot after all. Now, he had a wife that was expecting, and what if he was caught this time? She and the baby would also pay for what he had been doing, with maybe their lives also. He thought, that was not something a man of character could do lightly.

Roslin was setting at her table at one end of the tent, waiting for Duck to come in. While she was waiting, she was working on the next day's teaching plan for the kids. The kids that would have been in the tent, had already left for the day. They all had returned to their homes before the curfew was called. When the tent flaps were pulled back and Duck walled in to the tent. Laure knew without looking that he as a little late, but not by that much. "So Duck you made it. Did Jammer brief you about what needs to be done?" She was looking over the top rim of her glass, at the young man. Some people in the fleet had called it her professor look. Duck thought it gave her a more predator look than some desk bound professor sitting in an ivory tower somewhere. Kind of like an owl looking at a rat in the dark of night, kind of look.

Duck had to center himself, and fought to keep from looking down at his own shoes. "Yes Ma'am he did. He said that someone would be out there in two days from the strangers. That is if we want to make contact again, or provide some cover for someone wanting to sneak out of the camp. That would be the best time to do it. He also told me about the supplies that I would be asked to bring back in, to help out with things." Most of these things he had covered with Jammer right here in this tent.

Roslin smiled at the young man. She had already picked up on the tone, and body language coming off the man. It was setting off all kinds of warning bells to her brain. "Then the question is, if you are going to be the one to sneak out and make contact with them." She stopped talking, and studied the man standing only about twenty feet from her before she finished that thought. "Or do we need to find someone else, and let them try to go out tomorrow night. What do you say Duck?" Laura knew it would be better if Duck went out on this mission. He was known already to the strangers, but she was not going to make him do it if he balked. She wanted to let him know that if he chose not to go. She had a backup plan ready to do, to complete the required mission. If she needed to fall back on it as a Plan B. It was a completely false Plan B, but Duck did not know that.

Duck gave a full shoulder shrug, and he could not stop himself and looked down at his mud covered boots. "I don't know ma'am. The wife was not happy about my last trip. She knows things have to be done, but she was not that happy. That I was one of the ones that had to do the work in the first place. I know it makes Frak all since when you say out loud to someone else. I even tried to explain it to her, but it's been hard. I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones, but she is not a happy camper right now."

Roslin had heard rumors that Duck's wife was still very upset with him. No one knew why, but she had been seen very angry, and would not talk about what was causing the mood. Most were marking up as just first time pregnancy hormones. And also her a first pregnancy, while being held in a cylon controlled refugee camp, and it was on a strange planet to top it off. Any one of the others reasons could be good reason to have a bad mood. Roslin knew from having to deal with one of those reasons, back before the cylons blew the human race almost back to the Stone Age. So it was with some empathy that she started to talk to Duck. "I can understand her reaction. Would it make things easier if I talked to her?" This was her primary hold card, or as others would call it. She was "pulling out the Big Fraking Hammer." And she was ready to use it. That is if she had to.

Duck was a guy and his ego just took a hit square on its head with a large hammer, and it was not the head that was three feet above his butt. He so did not like that it. That he would have someone want to fix something of his. Especially when he felt that, he should be able to fix all on his own. "I don't think that it will be necessary, Ma'am. It's just was that she was upset, that I was out there alone and without any Colonial support. That is until they got the computer working well enough." Duck was looking up at the roof of the tent, and he had a faraway look in his eyes. "That was not a great feeling; I can tell you that for Fraking free. If I do that again? I will need some more support, and a few guarantees. Before I try to sneak out of camp again, even with that magic blanket." Duck's head came down quickly and eye locked the ex-president. He was on a roll, and but he still was feeling out the waters he was traveling in. He knew they were deep, and he did not know what was under those murky waves just yet.

Roslin did not like where this was going, and was already drawing up a list of names of people who might want to take this mission on. Roslin let her back go very straight in her chair and a sly smile crossed her face all of the sudden. As she worked out each word he had said, and more importantly the tone he used. This was a now a negotiation, and if did not break right she would move down the list of names. That list was short but it could get longer quickly, if she put the effort into it. "Duck, we are in a cylon controlled camp. I don't know if we can offer any guarantees on anything beyond, that that the sun will rise in the morning. As for support, I can help with that." Roslin reached down behind her wooden desk and brought up a military rucksack. The first item was a long coat that she unrolled and shook it out. After laying it on her desk, she pulled out another long roll of strange fabric. This one looked like a cross between a thick blanket and a grass patch. The last object she pulled from the pack was a Colonial Military issued sidearm, and she placed in on her desk centered in front of her. The rucksack and a few other items had come from Saul after she had left his shack. Now she waited, she could tell Duck had been taken by surprise with her lay out of equipment. He knew two of the three items were not made by Colonial hands. And he seen some of what these strangers could do with very ordinary looking materials.

Roslin sat back down rather heavily in her chair as she waited for a reply from man called Duck. She was tired and the stress of another long day was starting to catch up to her like a car crash. First she placed her hand over the pistol almost cover it from view for both of them. "The weapon was pulled from dead human form cylon, so it should not be traceable back to us if something regrettable happens to you. Colonel Tigh had it cleaned and checked out already. He was not able to test fire it for obvious reason, I'm sure I don't need to go over with you. It is fully loaded with military grade ammunition, to include explosive rounds for the under barrel bore." She moved her hand to the next item, the odd colored blanket on the desk. "This is the covering Jammer just used, and he said it was very effective even when Centurions were only a few feet away from him." She moved her hand over to the long duster length coat. "I thank Jammer already told you about the coat, so do I need to say more?" She raised one eyebrow at the man sitting across from her with eyes the size of Viper thruster exhaust nozzles. "Does this fill some of the "support" issues you might have been having?" She stopped talking and was calmly looking at Duck, waiting for his counter offer.

Duck was looking at the offered equipment. His eyes were taking in each item in extreme detail. Like only someone who knew that those items, his life would depend on would look at something. He had been hoping being able to settle for the cover, and maybe a sidearm. This was going to be a lot better to work with, if Jammer had not been exaggerating on what he saw about the overcoat's capabilities. That would be great to have, but still be light enough not to cause their own issues with slowing him down or getting caught on something at the wrong time. He reflected again, that he was out of his league and he knew it. But he had to take care of his own soon to be growing family, and decided to push his luck a little farther with Roslin. "Maybe guarantee was too strong of a word to use. But what if something happens to me while I'm out doing these missions?"

Duck knew that if he did this again, that he would be doing this hazardous run again and again for as long as he could. "I want someone to look after my family, before everything went and got all Fraked up. If I died on military service, my family would get a good chunk of cubits from my life insurance policy the military backed." He sat up a little taller in the wooden chair, which he did not remember take a seat in. "I want your word. That you, the XO, or the Admiral will look after them, as best as one of you can under the circumstance. That is if something happens to me while I'm doing something crazy like you're asking me to do..again. I just don't want my wife and kid left out in the cold, and my kid to grow up and not know about me." One of the most feared issues that Military people have had threw the ages, is that they will be forgotten.

Now it clicked in Roslin's brain. It must have been the lack of enough sleep, which she had not been able to get the last few nights that slowing her mind down. She was asking him to take on a dangerous mission, and he simply did not want to leave his family unprotected or "supported". She now used her softer voice, and used the tone that conveyed carrying to the man sitting across from her. She could see the worry in his eyes, now that she knew to look for them. "I can see how that could be causing an issue. Duck, if something happens while on this type of mission. I will look after your wife, and child as best I can. I can't speak for anyone else on your little list." She was very sincere, family meant a lot to her, more than most people that were still alive knew. And it was a lot more now, that it had been on that fateful day. "If that is not good enough, I will have to see if we can have someone else try to do the run another night." Roslin was hopping now that she was reading the man right, this time. She knew that she could not afford another missing reading of this man. It was all about finding the right button to push, and having the right resource to do the pushing with.

Duck gave a small smile, but inside he was jumping for joy at her words. He had been told more than once, that he had a good poker face. It was just too bad that he sucked at rest of the skills to be good at playing cards. "Ma'am your word is fine. I know that you will do the best that you can for them in this crazy world. That is "If" something happens to me. That is really more than I should ask for but." Duck had stopped talking, and was now looking at all of the items displayed on the wooden desk top in front of him like presents on Naming Day.

Roslin looked over the top of her glass at the man again, and went professor mode on the man across from her. "But…. What Duck?" She had a good idea what he was thinking. It was just a better play to make him build up the guts to say it out loud, and not let him off the hook so easily.

"Ma'am can I keep this gear?" Duck had the youngster on founding day look going full bore, and it fell flat around his ears when he used it against someone like Laura Roslin. He was shooting for the moon, and as soon as the words had left his mouth. He knew it had gone too far with it, and the look he was receiving confirmed it.

Roslin smiled at Duck, but it was not a warm and friendly smile. It also just happened that it matched the tone she now used. "No Duck you cannot. After each return trip, you will need to leave it here. That way the next person can have it. They will also need to sneak past cylons, and they will have it. If more weapons come in, and Colonial Tigh agrees. Then maybe later we can look at that, but I won't promise anything like that. At least not right now. Before you ask again. I want you to think what might happen if the cylons find this stuff in your home." Roslin shot Duck a level look, to show that she thought it might be a very real issue of the safety of his wife and unborn child.

Ducks head snapped up, as what she was saying sunk in. "Okay so I will not be the only one making these runs. That will make it easier on my family, but all the time I'm spending doing this." Duck pointed at the table with his "support" spread over it. "I'm not supporting my family by doing odd jobs. I need to be able to feed them, without having to use the free slop kitchen if I can." The hurt filled his voice as he voiced the truly main issue he was having. His pride would not let him or his family go to the free slop line if he could help it. It was noble, dumb but noble of the young man.

Roslin sat back in her chair and put her hands in her lap. She was a more than a little shocked by Duck's comment, but again she could see where he was coming from. She quickly worked out what pose would work best for the next few minutes. "Duck the things that you're going to be bringing in, are not exactly the items you can trade in the market. You know what the cylons would do, if they found out about our helpers out in the wood line. What do you think they would do to you, if they found you selling a weapon or even ammunition? You could not even do it in a backroom deal. So how it would get out."

Duck turn a little red in the face at the flat statement, and question Laura had given to him. "I would never do something like that Ma'am. But if I happen to bring in some eatables, like Jammer did. Then I would like to have some of them to feed my family with. Or if I bring in some protective clothes, then I would like something to protect me and my family when the shooting starts up again. If I am taking the risks, then they should be high on the list to have some protection given to them when things get hot…again. I know, that you think that it's going to get hot again, and I don't want a repeat of when the cylon landed and butchered anyone in their way." Duck was referring to that day the cylons showed up at New Caprica, but he was also referring to the day of the cylon's surprise attack on their people. It had not taken long, for the people that Starbuck had brought back. To tell their horror filled story's to the rest of the Colonial survivors. Those stories had now been taken to hart, and in the forefront of all of their brains when dealing with the cylons.

Roslin was thinking back to that day and how over a hundred and fifty people had died on the ground along, that day the cylons came back to infest their lives. Everything Duck has said was true, and made since no matter how you looked at it. "Duck I can't give you military gear." She held up her hand to stop him from interrupting her. "I will pass your request along to Colonel Tigh, and that I agree with what you're saying. But again it is his call, because it is a military mater. I can see how something like this could help, with recruiting more people to support us. Do you want to wait to talk to Colonel Tigh tomorrow and plead your case? Now if you bring in food, I don't' see why you can't have some for your family. That is something we will have to work out and codify some rules on." Roslin raised one eyebrow as she was talking. "Because every bit you take, means that there is less that can be given out at the kitchens for those in need. You know Jammer, had a few pockets full, and some kind of canteen full of fruit juice. Something like that, I think would be okay. That is as long as you keep it within reason and do not go overboard with it."

Duck stood up from his chair and walked over to the side of her desk. "No ma'am. I will go. If you could please stop by my tent and check in on the wife while I'm gone, I would appreciate it." Duck was moving like a military man, which is to say quickly and efficiently before a mission. He was already putting the weapon in his military belt and checked the fit, before reaching out and picking up the long leather looking coat. The last items were the rucksack with the blanket still inside, for now. It was only really useful after the sun had gone completely down. Duck did not make eye contact with Roslin as he worked getting ready for his mission to sneak out of the cylon patrolled camp.

Roslin was smiling inside as the would-be smuggler tried on the oddly cut long over coat on over his normal clothes. The coat was big on the man, but it would not get noticed out in the camp, or by the cylons. That was because very few people had clothes that fit right anymore. After Duck was satisfied with the coat, they sat down to have a little chat while they waited for the curfew to be called. It was a lot like a longer version, of her old parent teacher conferences she used to have so long ago. It had many uses, like making sure there were not any surprises coming and calming down all parties in the conversation.

Once it was dark outside and the horn sounded off, to let everyone know to clear the streets. Roslin turned off the only light in the tent, and the pair slowly let their eyes adjust to the low light. This would give Ducks eyes a chance to adjust to the dark before going outside. Some glow was still coming in from her living area, but it was quite dark in the school part of the tent. When Duck decided that he was ready to do. He threw the canceling blanket over his shoulder and draped it over his body like an old style cloak or cap. Roslin helped him pull it over the top of his head and made sure it covered the pack on his back all the way down to just below the tops of his worn boots. After a quick overall check, he was out the tent flap, and disappeared into the dark, cold, and wet night. Roslin was along again, as she closed up the main tent flap with the hooks and loops that were built into them. It would be hours more before she could get to sleep. She would be straining her eyes at every little sound, hoping that it was not a tell, tell sign that Duck had been gotten his goose cooked.

#####

So far only about eight different teams or single person scouts had gotten the word about the change of statues for the cylons had gotten in place. This was not that much in the turns of firepower or the areas that they could cover in so short amount of time. It would take some time for more forces to both get the word, and to get into anything like a proper position to do anything about the cylons. Little did the cylons know but because of John's management. He would help the humans make the first kills of the Centurions under these new rules.

They cylon ground fighting doctrine had been based on the Human way of fighting. During the first cylon war, Centurions always worked in a unit called a half squad of five machines. A half squad or fire team was the smallest combat unit of the Colonial ground forces military. This had worked out very well for the Centurions with the massive armor and weapons that the rebelling war-machines brought to the battlefield.

As the Number Ones updated there technology base, they also had improved the Centurions. The computer models had said that the new model Centurion was twice as resistant to damage as the older model. It was also more heavily armored with ballistic weapons and in close combat with it's bade fingers. With the backing of the computer models, the Number Ones had broken the new model walking war-machines into smaller and smaller units. By the time of the renewed war with the humans, Centurions could be found working alone more times than not.

This had not been well like by some of the other Human form lines, but the ground battles on what was left of the human control worlds had not shown many problems with this new style of deployment. A single Centurion was deadly to a single sick, hungry, and under equipped human on those worlds. The few times that a single cylon had lost to a single human, were too few to change the deployment model. That was about to change. The people from a planet called Earth, were not sick, hungry, or under armored of this kind of combat. So the cylons would find out that they were the hunted and not the hunters on this planet.

As night fell on this cold wet world. Humans with technology that the cylons could not imagine were lining up targeting sights on those lone machines with death. It would happen slowing, but soon those rain drops of single shots, would be replaced with the sound of cylons dropping into the mud of the forest floor with regularity. In less than 48 hours, sixteen cylons had been shot down, and not one of them were able to download into a new hull. This was only a small taste of what was about to come.


	20. Chapter 20 Chp 11 a cylon shows stress

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

I'm still looking for a Beta reader and help, no one has come forward yet. Sorry guys.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 11: How does a cylon show Stress?**

 **New Caprica,**

 **700 Days after the Fall of the Colonies**

 **3 years 3 month AT**

John was upset as he paced back in forth on the preformed cross between steel, ceramic and the other organic minerals that made up the deck beneath his boot covered feet. If he had been a normal human from the Colonies, it could be said that he was freaking the Frak out. He did feel like his world was crumbling down around his ears. This cold mud ball was bleeding him of troops, and it was getting faster. It was almost like a cut leg artery, no matter what he did to try to stem the flow of his losses, nothing worked. He had read and studied every book or file, he could find about warfare. That had been back when he started to plan the final fall of man, all of those years ago. He had read about the effects of what happens when you lose too many troops in combat, in too short of amount of time. But with the Down Load technologies he had access to. This made it so that he did not really cared about things like that, at the time. He had also thought the authors were blowing it out of proportion to real life. Maybe to make it seem like they were under more stress, than they really were to other humans. Now he was not so sure he had been right after all, and John did not like to admit something like that. He did not like doing that, not even to himself or the other Number One's. John reviewed the all of files in his head about the original plan he had drawn up, he even reviewed some of his notes about small unit combat again.

When he had come to this part of space he had four fully crewed and supplied Basestars. Those four ships had been modified for long range operation, and carried a complete but limited down load capabilities. This let them too able to replace normal crew loses this far from any type Resurrection ship. The Basestars even kept a lot of extra bodies on hand to man the sixty Heavy Raiders that were in there bays fully manned with ground troops. Each of his ships had left on this mission with twice that number of empty chassis, as originally planned for this design of Basestar. That had been because John knew that he would need to land troops and loss Centurions doing what needed to be done. That is once he found where the humans were hiding. He had cut deeply into the number of the "normal" Raider replacements hulls the Basestars could carry. To come up with the need space for those extra Centurion hulks. It had been considered very risky at the time, but it seemed like a good idea to all the members of his line who had knew about the modification. Now he was starting to run short on active ground troops, even throw he brought twice as many Centurion chassis as the Basestars normally carried.

John knew that they still had plenty of Centurion hulls in storage on all of the ships under his command, but he did not have the core software to make them active and useful to him. Normally the hulls would have been filled when a Centurion went off line dirt side. But against all of the odds, and the science as the cylons knew it. That was not the way it worked on this mud ball, hidden in this fraked up nebula. Whatever was taking out his ground troops was really killing them. Just like if they had been made of just flesh and blood, like the human troopers that were their rightful prey. "That was not the way it was supposed to happen!" fumed John on the bridge of his favorite Basestar. He had lifted off the planet to here, only a few hours ago. He mentally marked it up to because, this is where he felt that he was supposed to be. He would not say that it was because it was where he was more comfortable. When he had to do the hard work, which he felt it was his burden to do.

When it was only three or four Centurions not down loading into new bodies. It was not that much of a problem. Was it a concern for John and the others? Yes, but not a planet shattering problem or even a confidence shaking problem. That had all changed to something, that John was now having a hard time keeping on top of. That had been until he had pushed the massive Quick Reaction Combat Unit out to help Crazy Kathy, and then lost all most all of them to whoever was attacking them. That had hurt and hurt badly to both John personally, and to the numbers of Centurions on the ground. The only good thing that had come out of that, was that at least now some of the lost Centurions had been able to down load into new hulls or bodies. Then he found out that some of the Centurions were missing completely, and that more than a few of the hulls had major missing parts from them. To add insult to injury, he had not notice this little detail. That is until it had been pointed out by a human of all things. That had bruised his ego more than a little bit, to have had something like that happen to him. It had taken some days to get over that anger.

He didn't know how to explain that little twist in the story, about the missing parts. That is again until that Fraking pain Baltar, had found out that John was still working on trying to figure out about the missing parts. That was when Baltar had said it was almost like someone was taking an animal trophy back in the Colonies, but this time it was cylons parts they were collecting and not horns and antlers. John had no idea why someone would want parts from his lost Centurions. He had spent unnumbered amount of computer and thinking cycles working on why. And so far he had still come up with a blank.

Right after his QRF troops had been wiped out to the last cylon, things had been very quiet. In hindsight it was the calm before the big fraking storm. That had lasted for a few days in a row, with only a very few of the Centurions had turned up missing. After the quite time had passed, the attacks had picked up slowly but steadily in number of attacks, and in scale of those attacks. Now not only was he losing what he thought of as just bullet catcher Centurions, but he was also losing real cylons in ever growing numbers. And just like all most, all of the Centurions, the human forms cylons were not down loading into new bodies' ether.

Final report on the ambush of the QRF had been given out to all of the human form lined to review, there was no way that John could suppress it. He was lucky that it had been completed and released, during the low point in the strange activity that was killing the cylons. It had been completed by a mix of Number Ones, Two's and Threes, but it had been John who approved the release to be read by ever member of the human forms lines. He had thought that maybe the worse was over when things had quieted down. When the attacks had started up again. That report and the new attackers had been used to attack his policies from all sides like a school of Caprica Gold sharks on a water carver. The final report about the attack had not had that many facts, and posed more questions than it provided answers.

The report had said, that they had been able to find a few dozen points that the weapons fire had come from in the tree line across of the killing field. No shell casings of any kind had been found at those sites. The investigation had found both heat and blast damaged foliage, and some ground marking where they thought the weapons fire had come from. Most of those markings had been impacts in the dirt of were cylon returning fire had landed. They had even found a single set of wheeled tracks near four of those probable firing locations. The mud tracks did not match any vehicle or tires used by the Colonials or the cylons for that matter. There also were tracks in the mud but, again they did not match military combat boots, or any other shoe sole on file. The report was short and basically said that they had no clue about the ambush, who they were, or why they had attack the cylons in the first place. Over all it was a very frustrating report to read.

When the attacks had started up again, and there loses started to rise with alarming speed. The Number One's had asked for a vote of all of the lines, and the results of the vote said that its logic was sound after all. Although it had been a very close vote, but the Number One's were victorious, again. Most of that had been because so far the losses of human form cylons, had been mainly to the members of Number One's and Number Four's lines. John's new plan would address this issue. Now different models of human form cylons were working with the paroling Centurions outside of the landing site, that the humans called New Caprica. The human forms were still the observers or commanders of those patrols. It was not hard work, only dull in the minds of the human forms. Oh and they could wind up seeing what it was like to die like a human. In other words the other lines did not like doing it, but none of them had yet to work out a way to get out of it.

Each of the Hybrids on the Basestars rotated being in charge of managing the duty roster for those patrols, and every human form Cylon was on it. That also would include this other Number One type cylons just like John. John had to do something to keep the peace and after a few days he lowered the number of human forms outside of New Caprica. Now only about 1 in 50 cylons on patrol was a human form cylon, but he had a lot of patrols out there going at the same time. He had been on one patrol himself, when they had come across a strange sight. That sight had shaken him to his core then, and every time his mind went to that part of his memory. John came to a stop in his pacing as his mind pulled up detailed memories of that mission. It happened at the speed of light, weather he we wanted to remember it to or not.

They were fallowing a per-planned path of an earlier patrol, which had not reported in on time. On top of that none of the cylons had replied to repeated contact request. So he and about sixty Centurions went looking for them, as the nearest large force of cylons in the area. They were about three hours into the search, when the point group of eight Centurions had found a battle site straddling there planned path. The small green and tan field was littered with spent shell casings from the cylon weapons. Past that they had found the trees and rocks on one side of the small field had showed where the other end of those spent shells had ended up. The north side of the little field had been latterly riddled with weapons impacts, and even a few small fires were still smoldering when the relief force showed up to the site.

That was not what made the sight of the battle, so strange to the Number One's eyes. It was the bodies of the Two and Eight type human forms that had not been assigned to this area. They were both tied died, spread eagle, between two pairs of closely spaced trees at the north edge of the field. John had no idea if they had died in the battle, or if they had died after being tied to the trees. What John did not know, was that the pair had been the first to die when the ambush was initiated in their areas. The hope had been to take head shots on those human like cylons. That way the body armor could have been recovered, but that had not worked out so well. Instead the heavy ION bolts had stuck the human forms in the upper chest area. The display was just a mind game being played on the human forms by the other humans, and it worked a lot better than they could have possible known. The local commander from the Earthers had vetoed the idea of putting an explosive device hidden somewhere on the bodies. The reason was that she did not want to risk the enemy finding it, and somehow learn something from it that they could use against the humans.

When John had made the report back to the rest of the community, it had not gone over well with the other human forms. After calming them down some hours later, he thought that maybe sending the images of the two human forms had not been such a great idea. With his return to the camp under his control, he did something he had wanted to do for a long time. He had secretly ordered that ten humans would be pulled from one of the meeting/cook tents, and publicly shot. He wanted to make a statement to both the humans in the camp, and whoever was outside the camp. That now killing cylons would have a price to be paid by those humans under his control. It was just bad luck that Caprica Six had been close by that cook tent, and saw the humans being taken. All this was being supervised by another member of the Number One line. That Number One had told her what was planned for the humans, not realizing that it might cause an issue. The executions were over before anything could be done by the other cylons to stop him.

When she had reported this to the rest of the human forms, his line had been called out on that secret order. He had been planning this for some time, and was not caught that flat footed trying to explain his reasoning for the order. He just said whatever needed to be said to the rest, to justify the executions. Anything close to the truth, was not said by the Number One. John knew that it was humans doing the fighting. All he needed to do was find proof to show the weak willed others that he had been right all along. He could not understand why some of the models were so upset about the executions of a handful of humans. They were only humans after all, it's not like they were important are anything to the universe at large.

What he had not expected, was the reaction from whoever was attacking his people outside of the controlled human areas. The bodies of the selected humans had been dumped inside of the camp, in to the open muddy field next to Colonial One. John had chosen that location for to reason. One was that the Colonials would see it and it had a good line of sight to an open field between the human camp and the tree covered ridge line. John had thought he had taught whoever a lesson, they would not soon forget. He had gone about the rest of the evening, and night doing what he needed to do in the cylon built building. And truth be told, he had forgotten the whole ordeal. That was until dawn the next day, when the things started off to a very bad start, at least for the cylons.

When the sun rose on this cold planet, there in full view of the whole camp were six more human from cylons torsos, that had been tied to wooden stakes. Somehow those bodies were put on displayed only twenty feet from the marked edge of the camp, and the open field. Now every human around the camp could see the half bodied cylons, literally swinging slightly in the early morning breeze. The cylon human forms were only exposed for half an hour, after they had been noticed by the patrolling Centurions. But by that time every human in the camp knew that something was killing cylons on this planet, and it was fraking mad as all Hades at the cylons. John gave himself a slight shake at replaying that scene in his head. "Baltar had been right again, the little Fraker." John said out loud as he paced in this room, that only he and no other had access to in the whole cylon battle group. Even other Number One's would not enter this room that is unless he "died". Even then again, only one of his lines would be allowed to enter this private sanctuary.

The humans in the camp had been celebrating the deaths of his people for hours as the details were spread, even after the human forms had been pulled down. He was about to order the Centurions to go from one end of mud camp to the other, killing everything they could. But he knew that he would have pushed some of the other lines to far. If he did wipe out a good bit of what remained of the humans on this planet. Enough push back that he might break out into a violence, but he thought it would be a brief power struggle. John quickly pushed that thought back down into a dark part of his brain, and locked it way…for now. He would address those problem lines after he had taken a more permanent care of what was left of the human race. Right now he could only afford to work one major issue at a time, or risk failing at both.

The only positive thing that had come out of that mess, was that all six human forms had been able to down load into new bodies within an hour of the bodies taking down. They had not been able to report much, but at least they would be able to take the field again. That is after they had some time to recover from the stress of very up close and violent death and rebirth. They all had reported that, they had been hit with massive stun devices of some unknown kind. The attacks had come at different times, and from a wide area that had been patrolled. The Centurions that had been with them had all been wiped out to the last machine within seconds of the human form being incapacitated. None of those Centurions had been able to down load into new hulls. That meant that no other information was valuable from them about their attackers. Again this did not go over very well with the rest of the human form lines. One of the Number Four's had posted a short medical report on how powerful a drug or other known stunning device had to be to do what had been seen. It did not make for a fun read and the bottom line was that it was a massive dose of drugs that would have killed a human or a voltage that would have fried a human to death in less than a tenth of a second. John had to send out even more patrols to try to find out what happened, and more importantly were the attacks had taken place.

When the attack sites had been found, John made his way to each of the three different location with the use of a Heavy Raider. There he had found at each site, that again. Parts of the Centurions had been taken from the battle grounds. But the interesting part of the attacks was that when the human form models had come to after the stunning had warren off. They were already tied to the post outside of New Caprica, and striped of weapons and body armor. And they had all been gagged, so that they could not make any noise that might carry the few feet to the grounded space ships and the cylons that were patrolling in there. All they knew about their executioner were that there were six of them, one for each of the cylons tied to the pole stuck in the ground. They were bipedal, and looked to be covered head to foot in some kind of fake looking vegetation. The weapons they had were some kind of super thin sword like device, which gave off a very high pitched but soft sound. One by one the human form cylons had been cut in half at their mid line and left to die on the wooden poles like animals. John and the other One's that had heard the stories could tell that the human forms were shaken by what had happened to them.

Now he had to both, activate and keep more Centurions in the human compound at all times. That was just so that the humans that had been already cowed, would stay under his control and not open another battle front on him. That was not helping his resource level he need to meet all the demands that he had…at all. He and the Centurions under his control, had been able to get the human camp back under control quickly. They did this without the opportunity to use any firepower. John thought that it was just too bad that they were not able to kill any of them in the process. As soon as a cylon showed up, the celebration would stop with everyone diving into the nearest tent or open ship's hatch. He had enjoyed seeing the humans in their mad scramble to get out of sight of the marching cylons. He still would have loved it if they would have given him, the least little bit of provocation. Just so that that he Centurions could have opened fire on them. But they had not…at least not this time, but who knows what the future might bring.

One of the ideas that had come up about how to handle the growing shortage of cylons was very distasteful. John was thinking about asking Baltar to put together some humans who support the crazy Fraker of a Colonial President under arms. They could take over some of what; the cylons had been doing since day one of this invasion. John hated the idea of needing help from a human, much less that human. If John did ask for this force of humans, he knew that Baltar would ask for the cylons to supply weapons and ammunition for them to use. So not only would he need human support him, but he would also have to give them weapons again. He was trying to work out a way, in his head that something like that would not happen. But so far he was coming up plank without redesign the Centurions that were still sitting on those orbiting Basestars currently useless to him.

The only way it could have been worse, was if he had to ask Adama or that Fraking Crazy Bitch of an ex leader Roslin for help. John gave himself a little shutter as he pictured standing in front of Laura Roslin, and asking her to raise a police force of her people to work under the cylons control. Then he quickly hated himself for doing something so human, and that he could not stop it from happening in the first place. At least none of the other cylon lines or groups had seen him do that that little shudder. It was too bad the sound of Roslin laughter was still ringing in his mental ears. It was like some ghost or banshee out of a Colonial legion John had read years ago.

Things had gotten quitter with only the odd loss of a pair of Centurions here and there after the gutting of the six human form cylons. He had thought things were looking up, and he had a good lead developing with this renewed quiet time. That lead had come up almost out of the blue. It had been when one of his Basestars had adjusted its overhead orbit above the planet by 1000 mile in altitude. It was done to better provide cover for the expanding area that his minions were covering on the ground below. It had picked up some back scatter coming from a Colonial made communication device. It had not taken long to track the signal back to where it had come from on this planet. It had taken even less time to get a small QRF sized attack group together for an assault on the same device. He had wanted to attack sooner, but he had delayed some to make sure that he had enough forces to do the job. But as it turned out, it was not enough by a long shot. As he looked back on that operation after the fact, one bit of information should have caused him to proceed with some bit of caution. It was too bad, that he had not noticed it at the time.

What was that little bit of a golden nugget? Well that little bit of information he had not noticed at the time, was the location of the transmitting Colonial device. It was over 1000 miles from where the Colonial's had set up in there mud field of a living area. It was even far from farthest reported scout mission, which had been put together by the Colonials. At least that was what Baltar had given him reports of. All of that information would have pointed to something being off. That is if he had only looked just a little closer at the data coming in. And he had compared it to the data, that he had access to in his ships databases.

One of the Number One's had kept tabs on the signal at all times, after it had been found. And every day for the three days that they had been watching the area, the signal was coming from. One other little bit of information that did not fit. Was that the cylons could not understand any of the transmission, that were coming from the location they were looking at. It would also start to transmit what seemed like random noise, right at local noon for that same area every day. It was almost like it was acting as a beacon for something or someone and not a standard communication attempt.

On the dawn of the fourth day after finding and localizing the Colonial device. John had launched his masterful planned attack on the Colonial transmitter. The first wave of the attack had been led by Heavy Raiders carrying mixed crews of human forms and Centurions in the hollowed cargo areas of those craft. He had wanted to get combat forces on the ground fast. It was hopped that he might be able to catch some of these very elusive prey, if he surprised them effetely enough. He had landed with forty-five fully loaded Heavy Raiders, which was just under 900 armed and dangerous cylons leading the ground attack on the little hilltop in the middle of nowhere. I was the perfect example of an Air Mobile attack. It would have looked like it had come right out of a move about the United States Army in Vietnam. That was an entire cylon combat Battalion with two attached combat companies or a short combat Brigade in military speak. Those Heavy Raiders had been supported over head by forty Raider fighters, all armed and prepared for the ground support mission. It was a good plan, a well thought out plan. It was just like all the books had said it should be. It was a perfect plan in the cylons eyes. What could go wrong with such a perfect plan?

Because John was thinking about that day so very hard, the Hybrid on his Basestar started feeding him the copied information on the attack. It was just like a replay on the sports field with the winning score. He now could see the Heavy Raiders as they burned into the thin air of the upper atmosphere. John saw as they slowly get surrounded by the fire of reentry, as the massive landing craft slowed from orbital speed and sank deep into the thicker air closer to the ground. It had been a perfect formation as the Heavy Raiders came out of the interface fireballs, and approached the target location at more than twice the speed of sound. It was all going by the Colonial Marine assault manual, step by step and perfect in every way. The landing craft had landed, closer to a crash for most of them, in a circle around the target area. All of the landers made it so that not one cylon ship more than one mile from the targeted area. This made sure that all of the escape routes were blocked, or they should have been covered by the Heavy Raiders built in heavy weapons.

While the first wave of grounded cylons started to deploy out of the landing ships, the massive wave of Raiders closed in to the target. They were to plaster the center of the circle that the Heavy Raider had made with the physical hulls of here ships. This is when John should have noticed something was majorly off with the operation he had planned. He should have noticed that the transmitter was still putting out noise. That he had talked himself into thinking, was an encrypted transmission of some kind. There was no way the communication operators could have missed the arrival of all of those transports and Raiders. Yet it seemed that way, by the output of the colonial military like transmitter that was keeping the same output rates as any other hour it had been operating.

When the Raiders massed and closed to the attack point something had happened that was not planned for by the cylons. From John's point of view from high above the atmosphere provided by the data transitions from the Raiders. The ground below exploded beneath the overflying Raiders, like a dozens of small volcano going off all at once. It would seem that whoever was on the ground, had read the same book that the Colonial Marines had written. And somehow they knew how to counter each one of those steps that the "book" said you had to do. In the first volley of rising ground fire was devastating. It had taken out just under half of the attacking Raiders in the space of a few eye blinks. John could tell that all of those Raiders that where hit from behind by what might have been missiles mixed in the sudden demonstration of firepower. And in seconds after being hit, those Raiders had crashed into the massive trees. It had only taken at most a few hits by those very powerful weapons to kill the attacking cylon craft. The remaining flying Raiders saw the attack, and did the only thing they knew how to do to live. They accelerated as fast as they could to get out of the kill box, and split up. They were trying to get more altitude as fast as they could, that normally worked against Colonial SAM and anti-raider fire.

Before the smaller of the two cylon flying craft, could clear the ambush site. Another five of their kind were blown out of the sky, and quickly joined their brothers burning in the trees below. The rising fire now looked to be a mix of fireballs, bright pulse of IR radiation, and very odd looking tracers that were impossibly fast. None of that incoming weapons fire matched the built in war books on those fighters. Even the huge Basestars could not match it to anything the cylon had seen in combat, or even had heard of before that day. Whatever these strange weapons hit a Raider, it started coming apart like had been hit with a wrecking ball but on a really massive scale. It takes only about half a minute for the remaining Raiders to clear out of the line of site of the targeted hilltop. It took another two minutes to get them reorganized, and ordered back to support the Centurions and human forms on the ground behind them.

When the Raiders returned and tried to make another attack run against the area were the fire had come from on their first run. They were again removed from the sky with what seemed like a contemptuous easy by the strange ground fire. Ten more of the cylon Raiders were falling out of the skies on the high speed run to the target point. That was before the last of the flying survivors could have died, there targeting systems went green. Those that could ripple fire all of their missiles into the attack area in one massive wave of destruction. They all most all impacted inside of the ring made by the grounded Heavy Raiders. The dog smart controllers of those cylon fighters were not really trying to kill anything in the target area. They just want to shot back at something, and anything would do just fine to the dog smart machines as long as they could vent a little spleen before they were matching fireball in the forest.

With their assigned job done the surviving Raiders could leave the area of conflict. Only three Raiders out of the attacking force of forty small craft made it back out of the atmosphere, and to the Basestar safely. Over the next four days only seven out of all of those lost Raiders were able to down load successfully into new Raider hulls. Ten more had been in the computer banks of the overhead basestars. But for some reason the software was too damaged to successfully make the transition back into an attack craft, and were lost forever anyway.

What happen on the ground was not as quick, but in the end it was just as bad for those cylons fighting there. When the incoming fire started taking out the air support, it had also started at ground level at almost exactly the same time. What the Basestar overhead did not know was that the ground fire was even heavier, and more lethal than what had taken out the overhead support for this attack. John had over looked one critical point in his planning, if he had real world experience instead of only knowing what he had read. He might have made a few changes, and not overlooked something that had been missing in all of those files he had read. Like how do you plan to reinforce your troops on the ground in a timely manner, after the enemy throws a monkey wrench into your well laid plans? He had just assumed that he had enough force to take care of any issues. And he had put everything available into this one attack that was available at the time. After all, that had worked in very battle in this latest round of combat between humans and cylons, what else could happen. Also John had never under stood what those authors called "Combat Confusion", and all that Fraking fog of war stuff. He was getting a Mother Nature's idea of a teaching method, about what those ideas were in real life. Humans had always had said that Mother Nature was a Jack Wagon of a teacher. She gives you the final exam, before she gives out the homework.

One change that John had made to all of the mechanical cylons was a slight coding change. It was going to cut down on the range of each type of metal cylon scanning systems, and it would also increase the replacement of certain components on those non-organic parts. John and the other Number Ones had all seen the reports about what those changes would do. And they had deemed it worthwhile and it was done. None of the other human form lines had been informed or asked for any impute about those changes. The Number One's knew that more than one line of human form lines would have not like this idea, so they just were not told about it. A cover story had already been made up, and checked of gaps. Now that modification was paying off, not that John liked what he was getting back from that modification.

All of the Centurions had been transmitting information back to the Hybrid and, he could access that information via the wet interface or tank, at his will. This time all he was able to ingest were snap shots of the attackers, before one of his Centurions went down. It was like watching a nightmare threw someone elses eyes. What he could see and work out about the attackers, were that they were strange beyond what he could have imagine on his own. He had started to have hopes that these attackers might be another form of cylons. From what he could tell, they looked to be metal bases beings like his Centurions, Raiders, or even Basestars. Then he started to notice things about the attackers, besides there outer covering seeming to be metal, as they wiped out his forces. Some of the attackers had different animal like heads, others looked like human skulls, and other looked like bigger versions of what a Colonial Marines might have worn in combat. That is if they had been dipped in some kind metal base before engaging in combat. He also noticed that the attackers were anywhere from seven foot tall to one that was over twenty feet tall, by what the Hybrid had computed. He was now more confessed than ever at the second look at the data, on whom or what these attackers were and what their end goals might be. And on top of that was those little question, he had a few more that he needed to find the answers to. Like why were these strange metal attackers were seemingly helping the humans? If these attackers were self-aware machines like cylon? They should be helping the cylons kill humans, and most defiantly not the other way around.

 **Attack on decoy Communication Point Hilltop 1067**

Eva looked to her left and saw Robin in her custom painted Delilah powered armor, and a little sweat rolled down her back. On this cool and wet planet along with her own Delilah powered armor climate control. They should not have let that happen, but her body was under stress and could care less about all of those reasons. This was not the largest operation that Eva had been involved in, but it was in the Top 5. It also was the largest operation she had been involved in a long time, like half a decade or so.

The pair of them, along with almost two hundred other fighters where spread out around this hilltop. Everyone had been on site for a few days now. The site was a small hill away from both the refugee camp called New Caprica, the Settlement of Safe Port Bay, and the Main support base that this war was being managed from. The plan had been in the works and planning phase for some time. It even had been the subject of some talk among the large group that knew about it. When it had been finally been announced if full. It was met with grim satisfaction by those who would be implementing it. All of the people around this site had volunteered for this ambush, and they all knew the risks that they were taking. As Eva looked around the in the heavy undergrowth she could only see four other people, beside her and Amazon. For some reason this gave her a bust of confidence, to her well trained eye they all looked ready for anything. She knew that Eva and Robin teams were all highly trained, experienced and were also very well-motivated.

Everyone person in this ambush was armed with at least two ION based energy weapons, and armored with the best stuff they owned or fielding by the Settlement. She knew that there were no low powered weapons or homemade body armor, and this would have an amazing impact on this upcoming fight with the cylons. Eva could not remember the last she had fought in a battle this big, and with support that was this well-equipped. Now all they had to do was wait patiently for the guests of honor to make their appearance on this isolated hilltop. The whole idea of the ambush was that the Cylons could pick up Colonial communications and do it quickly. When an over flying Cylon basestar picked up the transmission they would attack the "Colonial" site with what they thought would be overwhelming force. It was the job of the local defenders to take out this attack force, and collect whatever they could. Then they would run for the deep forest again. It was almost like the first ambush Robin and she had done. That had been when the pair of woman had been trying to help Jammer get away from the cylon controlled camp. Just this one was on a much larger scale. It was hopped that if the cylons got a big enough bloody nose. That they would think twice or even three times before dropping an attack force on another Colonial type transmitter. This would have a long term effect on the battle field, and almost all of the odds would be in the humans favor, for once.

When the report had come in that a cylon orbital ship was shifting its orbit, everyone had gone on high alert. They were on Day five of the ambush, and if nothing happened in the next 48 hours. The transmitter would have to be shut down, everything broken down, packed back up, and pulled out of the area to go back to the Main support base. The people on the ambush detail would be given a week off, and they would have to do it all over again maybe somewhere else this time. Eva was now of mixed feelings about having to leave, she knew she wanted the cylons to show up badly. If they had to shut down the ambush this time, she was going to owe Robin 100 E-clips recharging chits. She had the money, but it was the point of the matter. Who would have thought that the cylons, who hatted humanity so much. Would wait this long to attack such a juicy Colonial target. Eva was thinking that she would not be the only one to lose bets, if the cylons were no shows.

Eva was looking around the area again, and found herself was watching a seven foot tall wolf faced NG-DX-001 Thunder Hound slowly moving or shifting to a new position. As soon as the Northern Gun made machine has stopped moving. All of the radios started announcing an airborne threat was on its way, and what direction it was coming from. Eva smiled and let out a whoop, then keyed her radio to a private line between her and Robin. "Hey, Amazon! It looks like over two dozen Heavy Raiders escorted by about forty Raiders are wanted to coming by for dinner. You think we were popular are something." Eve let off the button and soon her coded burst transmission was leaving her machine at the speed of light.

Robin "Amazon" Fero did not reply to the radio transmission that had come from her longtime friend. She just raised the heavy Ion rifle that was a twin of the one in Eva's battle suits hands, and shook it in the air. It was as good of a signal as any, to say that she was ready to give out some pain. The ION Rifle was a hand carried weapon, which should have been on one of the new Northern Gun made Blue Hawk Powered Armor. They did not have any of those suits in the cargo ships, but they did have some spare parts to support them, that were now finding new uses. Now, a dozen of these heavy weapons were spread out in, and around the whole ambush area today. They were there, along with a lot of other heavy weapons. That the cylons should not see, until it was too late for them to do anything. That is but die.

Eva waved her own metal hand carried weapon in the air just like Robin had, then takes up a better fighting stance with it. She only had sixteen shots with the weapon, before she would have to replace the Long E-clip energy storage device with another one. She intended to make every shot count, and not for the first time. She was wishing that they could have found a way to have been able to power the thing from her suits own built in power systems instead of only the E-clip. They just did not have the time or the personnel, with the knowledge to do something like that at the Main Support Camp. Maybe they would find the time and the people later. Like when they were pulled back to the Settlement to relax and recover. Then again maybe not, they still had to live through today first. The weapon was not owned by Eva, it was only a "loaner" from Major Weston.

Robin, Eva and a few key others in the group were not to fire until ordered, or certain things happened. Major Weston believed in having quite a bit of flexibility in any plan he put together. As the world exploded around them all of the suits recorded the cylon missiles strikes came from the Heavy Raiders, and the rising fire that started taking down the small Raider class one after the other. Eva's target was a Heavy Raider that had coming in, but had not opened its offloading hatch, yet. She tagged her targeted craft, and it was passed this information along to the rest of the detail. Now they could find their own targets with worrying about over lapping kills. There were more Heavy Raiders on the ground, than there were people on this detail. But that had been expected, when the plan had been made.

A Heavy Raider landed only about two feet from Eva hiding spot in the tree line. As soon as some of those craft had stopped moving after making a touchdown. The main loading hatch started to open. Only half of the Heavy Raiders dropped their hatches at fist. The outer ring of the battle lines started to fire up in to the air. Eva could see threw the top of her HUD that cylon Raiders were starting to fall form the sky. Eva felt her fingers tighten on her triggers, but she stopped. It was not time, yet for her to join the party. A wave of Centurions was still exited the odd number Heavy Raiders. When the remaining Raiders returned after their aborted first attack, and fired there missiles into the decoy site, Eva smiled. That was the signal for the rest of the teams could open fire on the cylons. As the old saying went, it was on like Donkey Kong.

While the cylons missile were still exploding in the center of the hilltop surrounded by the Heavy Raiders. The even numbered transports stared to lower their loading ramps to get the rest of the ground force deployed. It was only about half way down when Eva put a three round bust of heavy ION bolts into the still moving main loading ramp. Her massive weapon hit with all three bolts in her burst from the massive rifle looking weapon. The first bolt blew four foot hole all the way through the landing ramp. This allowed the fallow on twin bolts to go through the blasted hole without losing any energy in there passage. The twin pair of blue-white energy balls of the energy bolt hit the closely packed mass of twenty Centurions waiting to come charging out the soon to be opened hatch. Eva was lucky and the three ION bolts took out the Heavy Raider and all of its cargo in one burst. This was because of the energy discharge from the first hit radiating threw the Heavy Raiders internals electronics, and conductive enteral skins. If she would have only fired once the energy level would have still "killed" the Heavy Raider. Then it would only have maybe stunned the metal cylons in its cargo hold for a handful of seconds. The two additional energy discharges did not a cumulative effect, but expendable one. That meant that there three energy blasts in such a confined environment wiped out the two cylon squads and there ride off planet. All of this, was for the price of about 1/5th of a long E-clip charge that was in Eva's weapon. Oh, and not a little of Eva's stockpile of luck.

Eva's luck was just a fluke and soon more Cylons, both metal and skin covered, were charging to the sounds of the attackers. Eva had not idea of her luck, and she did not have time to think about it. All she knew was that threats were not coming out of the landed Heavy Raider to her front. That was all she knew, as she tracked her weapon and sighting systems across the battle field firing into the wave of running death. There were so many cylons now moving around, that she could not take the time to reload her massive hand carried rifle when it E-clip lost power. When it ran dry of energy, she put it on the ground so that it was not damaged. Then she pulled the huge Vibro sword off of her back to go with her forearm mounted Vibro blades. They all were only the backup weapons for her head mounted short range ION blaster that was standard build for her class of machine. With the confusion of the close quarter's battle with the cylons, Eva quickly lost track of Robin in all of the confusion. Keeping an eye out for her longtime friend was not part of her current mission. Robin and Eva were the heavy hitters in this area of the ambush sectors. That was what her mission was, and that was all that she had time for. Robin would be busy doing the same thing, and Eva pushed thoughts of her friend aside.

Eva was wading through the human from and metal cylons like they were rain drops on a car windshield. She walked up on a Crusader and a Plastic Man EBAs that were part of her team that she was supporting. The pair of troops was latterly being buried under a wave of Centurions that had somehow survived to get into physical contact range of the pair. Eva had to retract her forearm blades and put the robot sized sword away. With a grin on her face she picked up a resisting Centurion from the top of the pile of wiggling legs and arms. She brought it up to front of her helmet, and fired the ion blaster at the cylon in her hands at less than point blank range. She did not want to fire into the dog pile out of fear of hitting the two troopers, that her systems told her were at the bottom of that mass. By the time she had picked up the fourth cylon. She did not even realize it was a human form called a Number One until after her weapons had blown it in half. While she still had a leg and one arm in her suits metal hands she notice, and she did not care.

The now freed troopers took up supporting fire points surrounded by the wreckage Eva had caused. The three of them kept up the amount of steady and accurate fire going into the smaller and smaller number of operational cylons on this hilltop. It was not like someone had thrown a light switch or something like that, and the fighting stop. It was not like so some entertainment show would lead you to believe. It was more like a quick decline in action, the Earth made weapons made little to no noise, but the same could not be said of the Cylon and Colonial made weapons. When the number of active cylons fell, then so did the overall noise level on that once green hilltop. Eva looked over to her combat time display, and was surprised that the clock said that "only" eleven minutes had passed. When Eva looked out of her armored glass cockpit, she saw the two troopers slumped against a pair of conveniently placed trees. As she watched, they raised their helmets up, and half hunched over. She could tell that they were panting like dogs after a long day of playing.

Watching the two men in energy distress, bought the same issue to Eva. The artificial "muscles" of the combat robot helped a lot in movement of her robot. But it still took some effort to get it to start moving, and even more to keep it moving. It did not matter if it was moving her legs or arms. I all took some effort from the pilot to move those armored covered appendages. Eva had been almost running for ten minutes solid at about her bodies' maximum effort level. Think about sprinting for almost ten minutes, it was kind of like that. As Eva was catching breath, she looked around, and she had no targets or threats on her HUD. Then over the radio reports started to flow to the ambush commander that this was the same for the other areas of the massive ambush site. It would seem that the ambush was over, and the really hard work, but a lot less dangerous work was about to start.

 **For the Humans Aftermath of the ambush**

Amazon and her little team of small friends, who were both were in Plastic Men EBA Body armor had cleared there area of the ambush of any living or moving cylons. Robin was tracking her friend's location on her HUD, and started to move that way when the combat in her area started to die down. When she reached the edge of her assigned area of support, Eva was not with in eye sight of where Robin was standing. She was about to punch up the private channel on the radio that the two of them had used in the past. Robin hand stopped moving like it had touched something solid, when the radio speaker started making noise in her ears.

Major Weston was looking around the battlefield from a nearby tree covered hilltop and ridge line that over looked the ambush site. The camouflaged covered tent was the command post for this little attack that he had managed. The camouflaged must have worked, because the first wave of cylon Heavy Raiders had over flown his tent on the way to the ambush site without firing on them. Major Weston had not had to give but one or two orders after the cylons had landed. All he needed to do was keep an eye on thing and review the reports as they came in.

When he reviewed the reports, and they showed that the battle was over. He picked up his radio, he was about to start what he called Part Three of his plan. "Okay looks like they have had enough for today. All teams go to the Phase Two checklist. Command will notify you all, if we have any overflights or a second wave might come in. Just as an FYI. We are not tracking any of the cylon orbital support ships or Basestars that can range us. Keep your heads on a swivel and be ready to but fire down range at any time." Weston let up on the transmit button, and then gave an evil smile that the four other people in the tent did not know how to take at first. "Keep to the check list, and grab what you can people. Phase Two team leaders, let's get it done." Weston let go of the transmit button, and looked around the little command post. He gave a single finger circle in the air movement. This lit a fire under the whole staff, with a rush of moving feet and hands. They were already getting some items ready to pack up into one of the hover transports nearby.

Robin looked at the radio and smiled, before pulling up her Phase Two list. The general jest of Phase Two, the idea was to take anything they could from the cylon's side of the ambush that might be useful or have value in any other ways. This was all she needed in the way of orders to cross into Eva's area of assigned support, and out of hers. Within a few steps Robin cleared a set of thick trees, and saw her long term friend with the face plate of her machine open. Robin knew it was to allow fresh air enter her war-fighting machine and not so that Eva could void her stomach. Eva was not that kind of girl.

Eva had just "popped her lid" to let some fresh air cool her face and neck, when she heard something large moving her way through the heavy trees. It was way bigger than any cylons, so she just turned to look in the direction of the sound. As the massive machine made it passed a clump of close growing trees, Eva recognized Robin in her Delilah. Eva could not stop a smile from cross her face at the first site of her longtime friend and business partner come towards her.

The smile dropped a little when she saw the damage done to her friend's machine, and the two plastic man armored attendance not that far behind her. Eva could see a few slash marks on her friend's machines legs, and matching marks somewhat higher up on the shorter Plastic man suits. She was thinking that those odd marks must have been made by the blade like fingers on the Centurions. There were also little impact points in close groupings on different areas of the Delilah. Those might have come from the built in weapons, or the hand carried colonial weapons of the cylons. More distracting were the few three finger wide shallow craters. There was no doubt that they were made by the 15mm heavy Centurion carried automatic support rifle. There did not seem like anything, looked to be life threatening. But it was a lot of armor damage that would have to be fixed. More importantly they would have to pay for someone to do the work and the materials to do the job.

Eva flipped a switch and activated the private channel on her radio. "Hey Amazon, good to see you made it. Looks like you will have to make some touch ups on your paint job in the next few day." The smile on her face carried over into the tone she used to talk to her friend.

As quick as Eva had stopped talking, Robin was giving her reply on that same private channel. "Yea, but so will you. What happened to your support group? It looks like they both were beaten with a large stick or something?"

Eva was laughing a bit at the comments, and she had not even looked or thought about what her machine might look like after the battle. All that really matter was that her suit's system told her, that she did not have any thing that was an issue right now. When she shot a look to the two troopers that were near the tree, she could see that were just now starting to move to the Phase Two areas. They did indeed look like they had had been hit with a fail tank or a giant with a large stick or pipe. "Yea I found them being scrummed by a boat load of cylons. I don't know how they let that many can make it that close, but there taken care of now." Eva used a level tone, but she was taking notes that she knew Major Weston would want to cover during the follow on AAR.

Before there could be a reply from Robin, Chuck Finley drove by in his Wastelander off road motorcycle at about ten miles per hour. He waved to the still standing still or slow moving group of fighters. He had his face plate up, and showed them a huge grin on his face as he went by waving to them. That was all the motivation they needed to get their heads back in the game. The only people that were allowed to have wheeled transportation at the site of the ambush, were proven scouts of a given skill level. All of the other transportation was of the hover craft types or on foot. This was going to limit what they could take from the battlefield in a short amount of time. But most people did not think that they would be able grab that much anyway. Before the cylons were able to launch any counterattacks on the site.

They were not working long before the first warning of a cylon overflight was on its way. Everyone had to stop what they were doing, and go to designated hiding spots, and wait to see if they would be cleared to engage the hostile craft. To everyone surprise the over flying Raider did not fire into the site, and was at such a height. That only the most high tech robots, and other high powered devices could pick up the overflight of the cylon craft. When the all clear was given again, they all jumped back into action from there hiding spot. Most of the groups were detailed to picking up the fallen Centurions, stripping weapons, and usable body armor from the human form cylons. However a larger group was checking out the crashed Raiders and a second group of about fifteen people were working on the circle of grounded Heavy Raiders. In short it was a mad house of moving arms, legs, and bodies.

One sight that was seen by just about everyone at the ambush site was able to recall. It was of Chuck without his helmet on, and a huge smile on his face. He was working with two others, which had already working off to one side of the area of battle. That little group had already recovered there maximum load of scrap, and had some free time on their hands. Robin had made a comment that was later replayed a lot. She had said that idle hands were the devils playground. Very few people would say that she was wrong, when it was referring to Chuck Finley.

Chuck and his group were the few that could claim that fact that they had pulled out the maximum amount of salvage, that day. All of Major Weston working groups did not have that much transportation with them, but Robots and Battle Suits gave the pilots a lot of additional strength. Could they have taken more, when they had to stop because of the cylons getting closer? As the Colonials would have said, Frak yes they could! But they had to leave, and they had pushed their luck very far that day. On orders from Major Weston, all of the groups left the ambush site as he had planned. Those groups were moving in such a way, that some tracks were left for the cylons to find as they made a run for the hills.

That was called Phase Three of Part Three of the plan. They all were to leave the area in a scattered pattern with an over two dozen rays of tracks come out off of the ambush hill. They were ordered to leave "foot" prints, but no wheeled tracks or any other track able marks. At certain set times and distance each of groups would split up again. And at one set preset distance, all tracks would have to be wiped clean from then on. They were to leave no trace of themselves from that point on, until they made it to a campsite. Major Weston wanted to frustrate any cylon that might decide to track them from the attack site. This had a very important long term goal that Major Weston felt was worth the risk. It was hopped that soon cylons would get in the habit of not fallowing, any strange tracks left behind by any of his people.

 **Cylons aftermath of the Ambush**

The cylon attack was over in less than fifteen minutes after the first shot was fired at the attacking cylons. It did not take John long to realize that he had walked all of his attacking force, in to a well-planned and executed ambush. It did not take him but a few seconds, to realize the ambush was on such a massive scale. Events of that scale he had only read about, a few times in his decade of studying the Colonials and how to use the war-fighting arts against them. That did not include space battles, one part of John's brain chided him. John was so stunned by the turn of events, that he had not even sent an alert to re enforce the attack for some time. He was mesmerized by the data being live streamed into his viewing in the Wet Interface of his command room. His cylon brain was in information overload, and it had locked him up so that he could not do anything. Human commander had known about this type of thing for centuries, but John had not believed it. That is when he had read about it in all of those books and files.

During the opening of the planning stages, John had ordered the moving of two of his Basestars out of planetary orbit. They had jointed the other two basestars that were the outer defensive ring for this solar system. They were not as far out, so they would have been called middle defensive lay, if they had anything closer to the planet. That is besides the one ground base. They were well out and away from the Planet when the attack went down. This was in case this was part of a larger plan by Adama to distract him from a larger event. This had the effect of meaning that there was not any orbital weapons support near the attack or ambush site. It was ironic that the one time that John knew there was a large force of the strange attacker were located at. He did not have the powerful weapons to drop on this enemy, which he could have if he had not order the Basestar to move. He could have taken them out safely from orbiting on high out of range and danger of counter firing weapons. And it would have not risk any blow-back from the other cylon lines. It was just too bad that he had not thought about that when he was planning this big event.

Now all of those assets on those Basestar were not available for him, to use in anything like a timely and effective manner. Even with his enhanced reaction speed compared to a "normal" human, it was another three minutes before he could send a signal to the closest Basestar for support on a best case scenario. With the distance the message would have to travel, it would take at least five more minutes, until that message was turned into action. Only then was the first Raider was launch to support this disaster of a surprise attack. He did not have any more active or ready Heavy Raiders on the two closet Basestars after this ambush had been launched. On top of that, his nearest land forces were half a day's walk, if they could make it at all.

He did not sent that particular order for the basestar to make trip from the far part of the solar system. He was pretty sure one of two things would happen, if he had sent those particular orders. The first would be that nothing was going to happen to this new wave attacking cylons. But it was more likely that the new wave, would run into another ambush or ambushes on their way to this growing grave yard on that hill top. John did not want to risk falling into another ambush, and ordered the area to reconned first from the air. Then he would send, on the ground in a small enough force that he could cover it up later, if it proved another ambush was waiting on them. One part of his mind told him that he was sentencing all of those cylons on that hill top to die, if they were not dead already. The other part of John's mind worked on that problem and decided that he just did not care. Raider and Heavy Raiders were too visible an asset to risk, just yet. A few more Centurions were not going to matter much in the number at the end of the day.

The first cylon Raider was over flying the area only about five minutes after it had been launched from its parent craft, and about five minutes too late to see any of the battle. It was moving as fast as it could in the thickish air that was at 50,000 above local ground level. The mother ship of that little fighter, was just started to fire up it's inter system engines to full power. It had slowly started to move in its solar orbit, so that it could bring the area under its missile tubes. Slowly more fighters showed up in high orbit over the planet. They made sweep after sweep of the area getting lower, and lower with each successes pass that they were not shot down. John was starting to sweat a little, as no weapons fire was directed up to the steadily lower flying cylon craft.

Nothing was seen from the air, because of the heavy tree cover besides where one of the few cylon missiles had blown down or up a forest titian. They did not come under hostile fire, or even see anything that looked like a weapon. Plus no targets were visible to their systems, so all they could do was watch and be ready just in case they were attacked from below. After about half a dozen passes, John was tempted just to have the Raiders blast the whole general area to toothpicks with their built in weapons. What stopped him from doing just that, was that he was keenly aware of one major issue that was also close to be getting out of hand. That issue, was that he was at the very end of a very long supply line. When you add that, to the fact that Bill Adama was still out there somewhere. No matter how much John down played that fact to anyone, who asked about the rest of the Colonial Fleet. Missile and cannon rounds did not grow on trees and he had a limited supply of serviceable missiles on his four basestars.

John was waiting for this to chance to take a more decisive action, he just needed to wait a little while longer before he could do what he really wanted to. As the final images flowed into John's mind threw the interface that his hand were sunk almost elbow deep in. John felt a wet spot developing at the small of his back. By the time he noticed it, the spot was about a palm width around and was slowly still growing. Again he cursed he human form makers, for putting this design flaw in his line. John put it on his list of human form design flaws he wanted to fix, when he had the time. That is after he was done wiping out the human race to the last breading pair. Very few humans, and even most human form cylons did not know that this was the way that a most of the member of the cylons lines One, Twos, and some Three showed stress. It was kind of like when the Number Eight's and their spines that glowed sometimes at….odd moments.

John was very happy when his communication device, in his ear started to make noise to get his attention. Then John let a slight smile come to his face, as a report another Number One stated to give him some new information about the assault. He was working with the nearest group of a full squad of Centurions, and they had finally made it near the ambush site on foot. It had taken over two hours for the ground unit to get that close to the ambush site at the full run. They had reported, that they could "hear" a lot of noise coming from the area that they were heading to. When they were under a mile from the site of the ambush. The approach slowed to a crawl, as they finished their approach to the combat zone. Now they were fully on site, without making any kind of hostile contact. When they were within about 500 feet of the assessed edge of the combat site. The Number One reported that all sounds suddenly stopped coming from the direction they were traveling. It was like someone had turned off the music, with a single throw of a switch. Everything was quite, except for the sound of the wind in the trees and sound of a few large fires burning fiercely.

The next report to come into John's interface made his eyebrows almost touch. It was a very strange report, and if it had come from a member of one of the other human form lines. He might not have believed half of what was reported up to the Basestar, even with the constant flow of updated sensor information to support the verbal reports. The general gest of the reports that were first coming were had to do with the general area of the hilltop. Whole sections of the Heavy Raiders were missing, as well as a large number of the expected blasted Centurion hulks. The attackers had taken trophies again, but this time on a truly massive scale that almost made a cylons processor shut down. John and three other members of his line, had to review all of the recording. They want to make sure one of them was not having a mental issue of some unknown kind developing.

The group of Ones also discovered that the attacker were able to take large section from the now wrecked Heavy Raiders, between pass of their smaller bothers. All without being seen by the cylon superior sensors during those overflights. These attackers had not only been able to do this once, but many times all around the landing zone. They had even been able to do it before the ground forces had arrived at that location. It was painful for him to wait for the full report to come up from planet side, but there was very little he could do to speed up the process. He could tell that even the Number One on site, was getting tired of being contacted by him every few minutes. With John's demands for an update on what had been found. Then when you added in all of the other demands, from the rest of the cylon human form lines. It was putting all most, all of the members of his line under high stress no matter where their current location might be at the time. Now the other lines had noticed the little damp parts of the Number Ones backs. This bit of information was passed along to most of the other cylons lines, but not all of them. It just happened that the lines that found out about the damp spots were from the Eights, and Three lines. The cylon lines that worked closely with the ideas of the Number Ones, would not put forward that bit of information to the rest of cylons. This also did not go unnoticed by the Eights and a few other human forms.

It took three hours for a full relief force of more loaded Heavy Raider to make it from the most outlining Basestars that he had requested specific help from. That was after the small ground forces detachment had made it to the battle site and found it clear of threats. John then was able to land and look around for himself, at the same time he was getting away from the nagging by the other cylon lines. He was not going to risk is life landing to soon after the battle. John did not like being downloaded into a new body, if he did not need to. A close kept secret of John's was that while he was downloading, it made him fill weak, and not in control anymore. He had a plan if he needed to do another planned resurrection again. He would make sure that only member of his line were present at the resurrection controls. That still did not mean, that he was going to rush in anywhere. That he might end up being forced to download without warning of any kind.

The Colonial transmitter was gone, by the time anyone could make to the site that it was supposed to be at. There were only very few signs that had been found, to say that the device had even been there in first place. The keystone evidence that was found at the site to show that the target had been there. It was the remains of an empty, and stripped 10 foot by 10 foot rough cut wood shack in the middle of the woods, that was still burning when it was closely investigated a fire resistant Centurion. The different types of cylons on site, had found tracks in the areas with soft dirt. There were lots of tracks, all different types of tracks in the soft earth. And all of them were leading away from the site, going in every direction on the compass. He had groups of cylons fallowing each set of prints, but he had been down that road before on tracks left in the dirt by the disappearing attackers. Deep in Johns mind that he did not allow access to the cylons network, not even to his own linen. He expected that they would disappear, whenever the attackers wanted the cylons to stop fallowing the attackers and not a step farther. He had ordered every group of cylons on the planet, to be on high alert from any more ambushes. So far he had been lucky, and the attackers seemed happy with what they had done to him today. He was not going to let his people let their guard down, if he could help it. You never know he might have been wrong about more attacks coming in the near term.

Now that he was on the ground, John was brooding, again. It was something he had done often, but he had caught himself doing the brooding more often than at any time in the past that he could remember. He knew it had increased a lot, since they had come to his planet hidden in this fraking nebula. He was trying to shake it off the latest session. That was when he noticed something in the undergrowth of a pair of large trees at the edge of the marked off ambush site. He took a few steps, so that he could see the objects better with his modified eyes. There were now two bodies in front of him, lying on the disturbed earth obstructed by a clump of tall grass like vegetation. One of the bodies was a Centurion, and the other was what was left of blonde headed Number Six. The Human form had been stripped of body armor, helmet, weapons and anything else that might be military related. Whoever had taken those items, had left the underlying civilian clothes that she had been wear. What was left of the Centurion next to her, was missing it's almost the whole torso section, from neck to hips. He could see where it had been, before it went missing, because of the crushed grass where it had been sitting before vanishing. He could see the oblong shaped head section, legs, and most of the arms discarded in the tall grass. All about where they should be on a Centurion, if it had been laying down on the ground. Now, just the mass of the torso was gone from this Centurion sized dent in the tall grass.

Whoever had attacked them, had also retrieved the weapon and other military equipment from all of the other human forms. But strangely had not taken anything else from their bodies. John now started to walk around the area with a keener eyes, and he found that all of the heavier weapons that the Centurions had hand carried, were also missing from the site of battle. John made a face like he had bitten into an apple and found a half a worm when he pulled the bite out.

"Why would they take those weapons? But leave all of the built in weapons systems and ammunition, which were carried by all of the walking war-machines? Why we're not taking the torsos, from the Human Forms, if that was there favored trophy area? The big 15mm cannons that the Centurions carried as a support weapon was to large, bulky, and had too much recoil for a human to use effectively. So why take those also?" It was confusing to him, and he passed those questions along to the rest of the Number One's, both here and off planet. He hopped that maybe if the group of them could figure it out fast. The answers needed to be found out about the whys and they needed to do so very soon. Or the other models would start to ask questions, which he did not have the answers to…yet. This had happened a few weeks ago, and he did not want that to happen again…ever much less this soon after the last time. The stress of that line of thinking automatically brought up the Number One's plans for Phase 2 into his brain. John had to push those idea away to a dark corner of his mind, on the off chance a Hybrid picked up on them to early. John had to keep walking and looking around to keep those thoughts out of the fore part of his brain.

The next strange thing John found at the site, had been collected by a Number Two that had come in on the second wave or about at the same time he had. As it just happened, this was the same Number Two. That was having so much fun, playing mind games on that crazy Fraking Starbuck, back at the camp. He had collected some metal fragments from different areas around this combat site. He had been able to put together a make shift table, out of odds and ends near the landing site or off the Heavy Raider that had given him the lift out there. When John walked by him the Number Two made eye contact, gave John a wave to come over and see what he was doing. John would have rather pulled a tooth out of his mouth, without any pain killers before or after. But he could not come with a reason quickly enough, not to see what the not to very stable Number 2 had to show him. You never know they sometimes come up with something useful.

The Number Two had small piles of metal spread out on the make sift table top. They were separated by color, and for other reasons that John had no way of knowing without some kind of clue. So he had do something, that he really hated doing, even on his best days. That was ask a leading question to a member of the Number Two line. But John had worked out a way a long time ago, how to even turn the asking of a question to his advantage. "So what do you want?" The few words were loaded with disdain, and as much contempt as the Number One could put into so few of them. Although John could not, but too much into them. So that it might cause a physical altercation with the other human form cylon.

The Number Two did not really look up at the Number One, and let the sound go right over his head figuratively. As soon as he had seen the Number One start coming his way, the Number Two had dropped his head, and went back to what he was doing. Now that the other cylon was near, he ignored the pointed barb, and gave one of his own in return. "Well if you really don't want to know. Then I guess you can go on continue counting the missing Centurion parts." Now the Two looked towards the other cylon. "Would you like to try that again, but this time being a little nicer to someone? Maybe like the same someone. Who might have some relevant information for you, which you didn't have before? If not? I can always go back to my other hobby back in New Caprica. That is a lot more fun for me, than playing in the mud out here with the likes of you, John."

Now John was about to blow his top. He was cursing his creators again for making all of the human forms, so like the flawed humans that he could feel his skin turning red with the anger. John had to stop talking, and close his mouth. Before something popped out, that he would have to work hard to repair later. He slowly counted to twenty, before opened his mouth again. "Did you find something? Would you please show me, what you waved me over her for?" John thought he wanted to die after the words left his mouth. He said them anyway, and he had made sure to keep his tone of voice calm and without any venom. It was hard, very hard for him to do this. It was just too bad that the Number Two know how much it pained the Number One called John to do it.

Now that the Number Two had heard the words, which he had wanted to hear before giving up his little secret. "Now that you mention it, John. I have found some things that are odd enough to pass along. If you want to look at these metal fragments a little closer, it would be worth your while. The first thing that I noticed, is that not one of them came from a cylon or Colonial tech base." He picked up a few bits of metal, and handed them over to the other cylon that was standing slack jawed. "I have only been able to run a few test out here in the field. But so far they are unlike any type of armor I have ever seen, or even heard about before. I might be able to tell you more about it, after I have access a Basetars full set of labs. I can tell you now, these are not Colonials. Whoever they are, and I won't say there aliens, but they are differently not Colonials. I would bet a week of time with my project on that fact." The Number Two was talking about the time from doing work for the rest of the cylons, to spend time with Starbuck in her little apartment he had set up. It was not a little bet, that this cylon was making. The Number Two really, really like playing what everyone else called mind games on the now ex-viper jock.

Now John was willing to spend more time with this Number Two type of cylon. He had not known what the mental off little human form, had wanted to talk to him about. But it was not the words that had just fallen out of the dirty blonde's head. He was not going to buy the bite about not colonial. Not yet and not in front of this Number Two. He did what he could do to shift the subject a little, but still get some good information. "What else were you able to find out about this mystery metal, you've found? You would not call me over just to drop that little nuclear warhead, and that be it. I know you to well. So give me everything you know, or think you know?' John's tone was very level and without any of the venom, or down putting tones. This was very rare to come out of John's mouth, and he hoped the Two noticed it.

The Number Two looked up from his shaky improvised field table. "Nothing. What did you want to do? Whip out my magic wand, and tell you everything there is to know about it? You want me to go all the way down to who they are, and how they made it the first place? We are not on an entertainment show, you know John. It takes time, labs, and lots of luck to work anything out like that. I don't even know what they are made of, yet. Now that information, I might be able to get to you in a few days or a couple of weeks. That would mean that you would have to give me access to all of the computer time, and lab space that we ask for. You will also have to leave us alone, until we are ready to report what we find. Anything else you might to know? Well you will just have to wait, to see what God wants us to know, and what he wants to keep hidden from us." The Number Two had put that last bit out, just because he knew that the Number One's hated any reference to the one God. What the Number Two was not telling John? Was that the other Number Twos would be using those same labs, and computer time. To do things that the Number Ones had ordered stopped for one reason or the other.

John folded his upper lip into his lower one, like he was trying not to snap off a quick comment that he really wanted to give the other cylon. With a slight flare of John's nostrils and huff of air, he knew that he had to relent or risk upsetting the other cylon. This might cause the Two to become less helpful later on. "Fine, would you please let me know, when you find something use full. I want you to put this at the top of your list of projects." John gave an evil grin, but kept his voice level. "That means no more play time with Starbuck until this is done." He was wagging a single finger from side to side, in the face of the Number Two. The look on his face was enough for the Number Two to know, that John was not joking about it what he was saying. Even if he had a slight smile on his old face. The Number Two tilted his head up a little to show that he accepted the orders. He would hate giving up his Starbuck time, but it was for the good of his line to do this. If not the whole cylon race. It was a small sacrifice for him to make, at the short term.

John gave his own head nod to the other human form, and turned away from the table in one smooth motion. He was careful not to touch the barley standing table, for fear of knocking it over, and upsetting the Two. John was again walking around the battle site. More and more Heavy Raiders landed, and were filled with the wreckage of the ambush first with the human form bodies, and then what was left of the Centurions. On earlier attacks on his people, he had just left the hulls and bodies in the wet woods after the first three days after the loss of his QRF. He thought it was a waste of time and fuel to transport the hulk or bodies anywhere. They had no use in his mind, and he did not want to waste resources at the end of a long supply line. It was all about the bottom line to him, and if something was useful or not. Then he would act accordingly, at least when the other cylon lines let him do that.

That is until this lack of action was found out by the others. Then the others cylons lines demanded that every cylon be removed battlefield, and returned to at least a cargo hold on one of the orbiting Basestars. He had relented after only a day or two of heated debate, just before he felt the Six that was pushing the issue would demand a vote on the subject. Now it was SOP to pick up every bit of cylon from the battlefield, be they human form or metal, and bring them back "home." The local area was now a bee hive of activity, as different groups were searching for the attacker, other groups were loading wreckage, and the last groups was were working on the battle damaged Heavy Raiders. They wanted to try to get at least some of them back into the air, if they could. The repairs were in hopes that some of them could be returned to service. John was hopefully they refresh the now much depleted numbers of those types of craft on the four basestars in this system that were fully operational.

While all of this activity was going on. The cylons were being watched from a safe distance, and their actions recorded in detail. This was being done by some hidden scouts from the Settlement, and the odd Colonial who was working and supported by them. The extremely successfully ambush would not have been possible, without the Colonials providing a lot of quality input into the overall plan. After all, they had been fighting these enemies for a long time compared to the people from Earth. The Colonials were for the most part, happy just to have been asked for help by the Earthers. Now those same Colonials had seen the greatest defeat of the cylons ground forces, since the new war had begun. But that was just a huge bonus in the Colonials books. Lots of notes and images were taken, for reports that would have to be reviewed, and passed over to the leadership both camps of humans. Something's would prove to very be helpful in the future, with fighting this common enemy. And other things would not, but it all was data that needed to be collected. Of course the humans would have to collect that data, without being caught while they were doing the collecting.

 **While the Number One was having his flash backs.**

Meanwhile back on the other side of the world. Laura Roslin was setting in one of the soup tents, with Saul Tigh. They were talking about the things that had happened over the last few weeks, in low tones around a small wooden table. They would not have chanced a public grouping like this before today, but there were fewer Centurions in camp the last few days. Than at any other time, since the cylons had first landed on this planet. The pair of leaders wanted to take advantage of the opportunity that had been given to them. They were using it to show that they were talking together, to the rest of the Colonials in the camp. They thought that it would help the morale of the camp, to know that they were still on speaking terms and working together for a common cause. This was not a small feet after all the rumors, and their real life history in the fleet between this pair. Things had been going well for them and their plans. When something like that was happening to them. It made both of them as nervous, as the first day at a new school. It had been their experience, that when things were going well or even just okay. Things were just about to go Fraking sideways on them. And you had better be prepared for it, or you might die. It was a simple but well proven philosophy, since the fall of the 12 Colonies to the cylons sneak attack. Not to mention all of the fleeing that had happened afterwards to reinforce that philosophy.

Jammer and Duck had been bringing in supplies almost every night, once they were able to get into a pattern that both of the men could live with. It was only about forty or so pounds of stuff on each shift, coming into the camp. And it had to be shared between 30,000 very needy people. It was never physically enough, but it was something. The most shocking thing that had come to light about those supplies. Was that little bit of help, was having a measurable effect on the population of New Caprica. Colonial Weapons and ammunition was coming in a pretty steady number. And after a carefully worded note went out, asking some question about those weapons. It had turned out, these weapons were not new made by these strangers. As it had turned out, just like Laura had thought. They had been captured from the dead human form cylons. They were lightly cleaned and inspected before they started slowly smuggling them in to her people. When Laura had passed that bit of information along to Saul, who then passed it along to a select few others. It had made a lot of the resistance members very happy. They needed that boost, after what had happened to the "By Standards" as they were not called, but only in very low voices.

Roslin had been shocked, when she had been told by a running and frantically screaming kid between six and eight yarns old. That the cylons had pulled people seemly at random, from this very tent. Those people had all only been standing around waiting for the next hot meal, and playing card games to get out of the rain and cold air. The machines had marched the newly gathered up group out into an open area. No one had known what was happening for way to many minutes. All the bystanders could do was watch. And wonder what was going on, and why in a low grade level of clinical shock. The cylons had walked slowly to the slightly more cleared area of the camp by the grounded Colonial One. The cylons wanted the word to spread, and it did. It went to every corner of the camp while the machines slow walked, at the speed of the grape vine.

The speed of the grape vine, was just a little lower than the physical speed of light. Soon the cylons had a large crowd outside of the ship. As the metal machines, put each of the people on their knees and bent their heads down one by one. This process was drugged out as long as possible, by specific direction of John. When the machine fired into the backs of all of kneeling people, it had been a shock for everyone that were there or heard about it later. It had taken every bit of her and Saul's influence to stop a riot from breaking out right after the shock had worn off the people in the camp. Roslin was lucky, and that it did not take long to convince Saul. That a riot, was exactly what the cylon called John wanted them to do in the first place. It would use the riot as the excuse he need, to kill everyone in the camp without fear the Number Six getting upset. She also told him that John might not even risk Centurions to do the job. The Cylons could just drop a bomb or two from one of the basestar in orbit, and that would be the end of the Colonies of Kobal. And there would be nothing that Saul could do to stop it.

There had been some issues with others in the camp that did not want to listen to the pair of leader, but nothing that had gotten out of hand or successfully redirected somewhere else. Saul did pass out all of the weapon, ammunition, and the very limited amount of Colonial looking body armor out of the caches to as many people as he could. He wanted his people to be ready, just in case this was the new normal for their lives. They were not going to all go out of this universe, on their knees. Not this time, especially now that all of the humans knew what would happen if you surrendered to the cylons. The cylons would just kill you the easiest way they could, to save their own supplies. Roslin was only 50/50 on that the cylons would not pull more people out, and kill them the next day. If that did happen? She knew and would support, what would be all out war with what little the humans had left for weapons against the cylons. From what they had found out later, from the informant hiding in the President's office. Baltar had not known what was going on, and with what had happened to the By Standers. More disturbing in that same note was that it also said, that Baltar did not know if it was going to happen again or not. She was just glad things had broken the way they had, and not as bad as they could have gone.

The real turning point away from the riots not to happen, or had taken the steam and fire out of them. That distraction had happened the very next morning after the By Standards had been killed. That was when the sun had risen, and exposed to the whole camp a new world. That had happened just over the edge of the camp, in the no man lands that the Cylons patrolled so heavily. It was a very welcome confirmation, to those few that knew something had changed before that day's events. That there new friends, were indeed. Keeping a close eye on the things going on in this hell hole of a refugee camp. If the truth was told, Roslin had been a little disturbed by the display of the freshly bisected human form cylons. That had been left on display for the cylons and humans to see in the slowly raising sun.

That had been one of those times, she had wished that they had direct communications with the people on the other side the world. IF she would have known what was going to happen? She could have had a plan in place, and not be surprised like she had been. After she had heard what was happening, she had run to see the cylons on display for herself. Just like almost everyone else in the mud lane camp had done. She had tried to convince the parents to cover the eyes of the kids after her mind had collected itself back into working order. That idea had not worked, and the looks she had been given when she had suggested. That maybe the kids should be taken away from the site, were still uncomfortable for her to remember. The parents wanted to show there little ones, that the mighty cylons were not gods or indestructible after all.

The cylons had wanted a crowd, when they had make there demonstration of power over the humans. And the Settlement had quickly given them one back, in matching vivid display for everyone to see. The cover story of a training event gone wrong a few weeks back, which had been used to explain the wrecked cylons. It also had been believed by almost all of the humans, in the camp up until that morning. Saul and Roslin had not made a public statement about the story, but quietly they had been looking around for support. They had passed along little bits of information, centered around that the pair did not believe the cover story being put out. They had not told very many, outside a very small core of key supporters. About the humans that were not from the 12 Colonies, that they were unknowingly sharing a planet with. Who would have believed them, if they would have been to free with that information without a lot of proof to back up the story? If they had been told a large number of their people about this turn of events, they might have been tied up for their own protection. Now with the public display of died human form cylons outside of the human populated camp. The whole camp believed, that they was a group out there fighting for them. Even if they were not in the group, that knew about the helpers, before the sun rose that day. Saul's department had a huge shot in the arm of support by the time of the noon meal, and it had grown steadily ever since.

The morale of the camp had shot to the stars as word spread around the grounded ships. Saul still had a hard time keeping some of the hot heads, from doing something. That might have gotten them, and more important others that might have been killed in the crossfire of their actions. The Colonials also had been lucky at the placement of the cylon bodies, on the wooden poles on the edge of prison. The wooden poles had been placed in the ground. All most on the completely opposite side of the camp, from where Saul and his people were digging his tunnel. The cylons had searched that area of the camp near the display with a fine tooth comb by night fall, but there was nothing for them to find. From a few people who were watching in the nearest grounded ships, that Saul had put in place after the cylon bodies had been removed. The cylons seemed to have done the same thing to the forest, and fields outside of New Caprica. Rosiln had thought, that it was nice to see the cylon chasing their tails, for once. Stories of the human forms, which she had heard. Said that they looked both confused and stressed about what had happened to their kind. These bits of information also flew around the camp by the time it was for the mid-day meal.

Saul had used the influx of volunteers to help dig his tunnel faster, very few of them were military trained. That did not mean that they were not smart, just that they had other the skills that Saul could see that were better used else ware, like digging and shoring up the tunnel. They had completed it just five days after the By Standards had been shot. Saul had sent group of three people to scout around, and that first group had safely returned a dozen hours later. They had no idea if the cylons had seen them "Break out" or not. Saul had ordered the small opening closed, and all of his people had pulled back into their "normal" homes. After 48 hours of no changes, being seen of the cylons. He would sent one or two people out the tunnel, and into the nearby woods. They would supposed to make contact with strangers and show them the tunnel entrance. That had been the plan that Saul and Roslin had agreed to. And as with many plans. The real world had stepped in to change it on them, without even asking if it was okay

Saul and Roslin knew that they had not been able to collect, and control all of the hot heads among what remained of their people. She knew some might not have wanted to wait for the tunnel to be completed. Others might not have even thought to come to them, first on their minds. They just wanted to do something to join the fight against the cylons. From what Jammer and Duck found out, from their new friends on the other side of the field after asking around. Was that about two dozen people had already sneaked out of the camp, and jointed in the fight against the cylons. Not all had made it safely to their destinations, of course. The cylons had already displayed four bullet riddled bodies, of the people they had caught trying to leave the compound under there thumb. Their bullet riddled bodies had been dumped, right at the base of the grounded Colonial One. They were there for everyone to see as they were rotting. Roslin had tried to have the bodies taken care of, as the Scrolls demanded. But Baltar, and the Cylons that were using him, would not allow that to happen.

No matter how many times it was asked and by who asked. The bodies stayed were the cylons had dropped them in the mud. It had been a little over a week; since the last person had been caught by the cylons, as far as they knew. Roslin had try again to have the bodies taken care of again, because now they were very obviously a health hazard to the whole camp. She had point out that the display had worked as a deterrent. Sense the cylons had not caught anyone trying to escape, in this length of time. She was turned down again by Baltar and a single Number One that was standing over one shoulder of the visibly drunk President. When the bodies were finally removed, Laura would bet that it was because of the smell. Both Saul and Roslin thought that is was probably finally been getting to Baltar, or affecting or more to the point it was adversely affecting his sex life. In the end it did not matter to her, the bodies were taken care of as they should be, and the families affected would have some closer.

One of the surprises that had already come through the new tunnel, had been Galen Tyrol. He had been sober, and from what she had heard from the contacts fighting with him. He had been that way for some weeks now. This was another, but very thankful surprise. It had been a very big surprise for Saul, when he opened that trap door in the floor of his tent. Lucky he had gotten out of bed not long after the sun had risen, that day. As soon as the light went down the hatch, allowing Saul to find this ex-deck chief sleeping below at the feet of his handmade ladder. He had a strange rucksack, which had come from the group of humans he had been working with as a pillow. Roslin was not sure how the reunion started, but she doubt it was quite or that short. He first briefed Saul until the curfew was lifted for the new day.

The two had walked over to her tent, to let her in on all of the new information that Tyrol had been able to dig up. Roslin and Saul were not thrilled that Galen had made the strangers a Colonial type communication system, which could make contact the Admiral. All without checking with them first, but it was already a done deal and they could not undo it. They both were happy, and more than a little confused about the Radio device Tyrol had brought in with him into the Colonial camp. He went into way to much detail about how he had tested the device, and how it would work. The details was going over the two leader's heads, after about five minutes of him talking about it. They shot a look at each other, and did head nods to the chief as he kept right on talking.

Tyrol had to use small words to explain about, how the Cylons would not be able to find any signals in the background clutter given off by the surrounding nebula. Roslin was not much into history of technologies, but Saul was making sounds about archaic junk he had brought them instead of packing in something like weapons. Roslin so got tired of his grousing after a while, and told him that she did not care if it was old. As long as it did the two things as he had advertised to them. One was to finally open two communications with their new friends. And the second, was that it was at least sort of safe for all of them to use with the cylons being so near to the transmitter.

The other part of his brief was very much a letdown, and the pair also had a hard time accepting what he was saying to them. That was the report about strangers little village. And that they did not, in fact, have any spaceships wrecked or otherwise. That they really did have two large water craft, was also causing some issues. And a few battlestars loads of questions. Like about how in the Lords of Kobal's name, they had gotten themselves stuck on this planet in the first place. Roslin also understood that the name of the flagship would cause a bigger issue. When it was released to the rest of her people or when it finally leaked out. That along with the documented facts, that they all did not believe or practice praying to the Lords of Kobal. That also was going to cause some big time issues for her, but that was going to be later down the road. It was just one more headache that she would have to handle sometime. At least she would only have to deal with that, after they removed the cylon's metal foot off their collective necks of her people. As Saul had put it, so many weeks ago.

The two of them were not talking about in public about all of what Tyrol had told them, not in this very public place anyway. Roslin brought up to date Saul on the latest report from the limited health providers of the camp. They had just reported to her, and it came from all of the various medicos they had left. That the influx of the strange raw and dried fruit, over the last few weeks. Had led to the dropping of the level of scurvy in the young ones, by almost 50 percent. In another few weeks, if the amount of incoming fruit stayed at the same quantity. The rate would be effectively at zero in that age group, and what comparable fruits the small green houses on the grounded ships were making. Their output would be able to catch up on the rest of the older refugees, which were also fighting off the early stages of Scurvy. She also told Saul, that the real fish protein that had come in. Had also stopped a lot of the other health issues that had been starting too developed, due to their limited diet. That last part of the update was said just loud enough, so that the ears of people nearby could pick it up. She did not blame them for trying to find out what was going on in the camp. Now they would have a little something to feed the rumor mill, and keep it happy for a little while. She had found out, not long after being sworn in as the new President of the Colonies. That if you periodically feed the rumor mill, than it was less likely to go looking for food in other places. And what they can find in those places, might not be as helpful to her in the long run.

After the pair of leaders had left the large gathering/cook tent, they walked together towards the now physical line that separated the camp from the rest of the world. The area they were walking to. Well it also happened not to be anywhere near the tunnels, or any of the slowly growing hidden supply sites around the camp. The location they had pre picked also was about the only place to talk, without being over heard by ears in the camp, both cylon and human. They felt safer talking here, than almost any other place in the mud lane camp.

Roslin pointed to an area across the open area to their front. It was about where one of the people that had been gunned down, during their try to get out of the compound without Saul's support. She was making a show of waving her arms in the air, while the pair where talking. It was all a diversion on the off chance that someone was watching them in the distance. What she was talking about had nothing to do with the unfortunate soul, the cylons had killed.

Roslin was watching Saul out of the corner of one eye. "So Saul, how are the triplets doing?" The two of them had started calling the three cache sites, simply as the Triplets some time ago. But for the life of her, she could not remember when it had started. Now they used the title a cover name, just in case they were every overheard talking about them now it was just second nature. It helped that they had now two sets of human baby triplets had been announced as being on the way in the camp called New Caprica. A smile came on to Roslin face at that thought. It also looked like there might be one more set on the way, if the medical lab on one of the landed passenger liners was correct. That is if they lived through the berthing part without the only known doctor to have survived the cylon attack. She had noticed that more people were optimistic, now that they knew that they were not alone with the cylons. Before the only berths that were happening were to a certain age group. That was marked up to a mix of boredom and the lack of contraceptives available causing those births as more accidents than planned on.

Saul was looking out into the open space controlled by the cylons, and snorted at what Roslin had asked him. "They are doing well, a little to Fraking well if you want to know the truth. They are out growing everything, and in every way you can think of." He stopped talking for a second then pointed to a random stop in the tree line. "Who would have thought that, we would have that happen for an issue? Much less that it would happen so fast? I don't know what they will be able to do in another few days, or so if they keep it up at this rate. I think, and would I be a little Fraker, to say that I hope it picks up the pace?" Saul was very happy with the number of weapons that were coming into the camp and even happier about the military grade ammunition that was coming in at even a faster rate.

Roslin was aware of the upcoming problem, and had spent some time thinking about a few "what ifs' events it the information was confirmed. Now that late night of hopeful thinking might be paying off for her now. She had to fight to keep the smile from coming to her face, and it was hard even with all of her political skills to fight the erg. "I might have an idea. I know some things must stay where they are, but." She knew how hard it had been for Saul, and his group to collect back up, all of the combat related items. The ones that they had given out in case of more reprisals, and put them back in hiding. It had not been an easy task, and more than a few feathers had been ruffled when Saul had sent people to reclaim the items. "How about setting out the strange cloths that had come in? I'm not talking about the colonial body armor, but like the long coats Jammer was so worked up about. We will have to let them know that its special, and we might even have to tell them how special we think they are. That would clear up some usable space, clothes can be bit bulky. I was also thinking that some of the package food could be given out." She held up her hand to stop the counter comment, before it had time to build. "It would only be a case in we needed more storage space for weapons or ammunition and the like. You and I both know that we all could use a few better meals around here, so I will not complain if you give up some of the food you have put away. Saul you have to decide do you want more of food or more weapons." Roslin was having to fight, to not looking at Saul as she spoke.

Saul looked at her with a snake quick turn of the head, but was pointed off in the distance to camouflage what he was talking about. "I had thought about some of that, Roslin. I wanted to get the clothes to people we know are going to fight for us. We also could now send some of it, back out to the groups that are fighting the cylons. You know the ones we know are outside the compound and at lease doing more than hiding from the patrolling cylons."

Roslin smiled a little knowing smile. Saul was always the military man, but was like a kid with blinders on sometimes. He could not think outside a certain set of areas. Unlike how Bill could, and was so well known for doing among what was left of the human race. Roslin had already had that thought and now she told Saul, what she had thought about it. "No." it was simple and to the point. "The ones, that outside, are being supported by the others for now. They brought that stuff in, for us to use and to use in this Camp. So it will stay inside the camp, for now. I'm okay with you giving it to your people, who are willing to be fighters first. That only makes good sense to me, but I also want their families on that list. I think that the list need to have them on it, as well as the families for anyone that is helping us smuggle it the stuff or already outside and fighting. The cylons might be targeted them, as well as the people who have the guns to defend themselves. We have too few people and once the cylons see the faces of the people fighting. I think those monster might target their families also when, and not if, it gets ugly. I want them to have something or as many of them as we can protect besides our more active shooters.

Saul did not like the idea of splitting up what little resources they had into small penny packets, but he had seconded himself and his whole group to her for leadership. He started to try to look at, as many different angles as he could. He was trying to see what he could had missed in his planning. He knew that he was not that good at that short of thing, but he as trying to improve on that little used skill. The truth be told he was a lot better now, that he could not rely on Bill Adama to bail him out. "I don't like give out items that someone in combat might need, it will risk more blood of the front line fighters. It could also dilute our total combat effectiveness." He had a little smile on his face as he was talking to Roslin. It was rather odd looking on his bald head and Roslin did not notice it, at first. "If we let it get out, that we have some new or different style of body armor to issue out to family members. That might also increase the numbers of us left. Who would be willing to do something more active against the cylons, when the time is right? That is, if they know that there family have at least some protection provided by light body armor. I think that could be of value to our cause."

Roslin like it that not only did she get her way, but that in the end she had been right about a military related issue. In politics and dealing with people? She was right more times than wrong, that was not always the case when it came to more military related matters or issues. Bill had been able to punch holes in more than one of her great plans, with what seemed like contemptuous ease to the ex-President of the Colonies. That was when Saul hit her out of the blue like a hammer wielded by the gods.

Saul Tigh was again looking out into the space between the spaceships and the tree line. "Laura you know that you're a target too, when things get hot. So if those families are going to get something in the way of body armor. Then you will fraking have to have some also. I think you should be at the top of the list for any body armor given out, that is not going to another weapon armed fighter." He held up his hand to stop her getting a full head of steam, in arguing with him on this one issue. "I'm not talking about the military style stuff, which we are patching together from what had been brought in. I was thinking of some of the civilian looking things our friends gave us. You could wear it, whenever you pop your head out of that school of yours. In fact the more that you are seeing ware it out in public. The more others would accept that it was good enough for them also. We all know what we have been told about it, but unit it's tested? Who will believe it?"

Roslin was looking over her glasses at him. But it was funny, because Saul was taller than her so she had to also look up to meet his leveled gaze. "Saul, I don't think you need to waste something like that on me. The cylons have not been near me, expect when they dropped off those school supplies in a long time. They did not even pick her up for questioning on the first days of them landing here. You know that they had waited until the second day for that. Any body armor or protection we have, needs to go to the people who might be a target. I'm not much of a threat to the cylons, not anymore, and the cylons know it. I think you would better off giving that stuff to someone under more threat, and could use better than I could." She crossed her arms and set both of her feet, but she was still looking out into the open field. This was as close as she could get to the, "I'm not changing my mind" look in this situation.

Saul barked a short noise that might have been charitably called a laugh, but only by people who knew him very well. "If you don't think they would put a bullet in your head, if they got haft the fraking chance. Then I think you lost some major IQ points, somewhere on our little the walk out here today. Look at this way Laura. These new clothes are strange, and no one really believes how good they are supposed to be. Even I have my doubts about them, and I've talked to a few more of our people. Who have said, they have seen how good it is first hand." He stopped talking for a few second, lost in thought for a minute. "Well maybe the groups that are being supplied by our new friends, or have seen firsthand what they can do can do some advertising for us." As soon as the words left his mouth, his head started moving from side to side kind of slowly. "No, I don't think we could get enough of them back into camp, and spread some stories around quick enough to be any good. The point being is that we don't have many of them, in the camp at any one time. And the ones that are hear, and if they did started talking about the "new body armor." The people don't or won't believe them, but it they see you in one of those sets of body armor. I think it will help a lot to bring them around to accepting if not fully believing. They all know how valuable you are, even if you don't agree with them. So if you're wearing some of this stuff, when you are seen in public. Then people will think that it must be worth wile, for them to." Saul did not turn to look at the woman, but it was a hard fought battle not to look at her. He was right about this, and he was not about to back down. Rock meet hard place, nice to see again. Too bad it had not been that long ago, since or last meeting.

Roslin was about to open her mouth, to verbally counter what the old warhorse had said about her. She stopped herself in mid move, and bit her lip her lower lip lightly. She knew that he was right about that topic, now that she had spent a little brain power on it. It did make more than a little sense, in a refugee mind set kind of way. People were people, and everyone from Colonial planets, just knew that you needed heavy and that meant very bulky body armor. That is if you wanted to survive close combat with cylons and there waves of attacking Centurions. "Okay, how about one of those long leather looking coats, like Jammer had brought in? They looked warm enough, and mine is thin and a bit worn threw. Besides I kind of like the cut of things, and they might keep my pants a little cleaner when I'm walking around. You know when I have to go to the cooking tent." Roslins hands went to her sides without her noticing them move, and they started to brush off some died mud on her pants. That had somehow gotten there during the pairs walk along the muddy lanes of the camp. When the bit of dried mud fell away. Roslin did a little spin like dance, in her beyond thread bear outer coat. Her assistant had found it for her the coat on first day; they had landed on this cold planet. It had worn out quickly due to its low quality of its making, and it was not like they could make more coats without any machines or raw material to do the job.

"Well that went a lot easier than I thought it would be." Saul Tigh was sure not to say that out loud, or he knew he would regret it for some time to come. He had been trying to work out how; he could get her warped in some kind of body armor for weeks now. Because he knew that she would not ask for any, if he had not offered it up first. And he needed to have a very good reason right at hand to justify her having it. He also knew that Bill Adama would have killed him, if something had happened to the ex-President while he was forced to stay off planet. Saul had not seen Bill so happy since, well just call it a long time. Maybe even all the way back to before Zack had died in that Viper crash. And Saul was going to do whatever he needed to do, to keep Bill that way for as long as he could. Saul gave himself a mental shake to get Bill's face out of his mind, and back to the task at hand. Now that Roslin had agreed to be under some kind of body armor, that he secretly hopped was as good as had been report to them. He had other items that he needed to work on.

Now all he had to do, is work on part two of his plan, which was to try to keep this woman alive until Bill could see her again. He would have to get some advice from a few other people, but he was determined to complete the monumental task he had set for himself. She needed to learn how to shoot at least half way decent. That was useless thinking, unless he could get her smuggled out of the camp, and surrounded by about two dozen heavily armed and armored Colonial troops. And they would only be the ones that he trusted enough, to do something like keep an eye out on his fraking still. They could not be just any Fraker, which might run for the hills at the first sign of cylons. "One set of problem at time Saul, one set at time please." He thought to himself trying not to let the thoughts show on his face for now. The two of them started walking back into the crowed or more populated part of the refugee camp, now that they had finished their little private talk.

##############

While the two leaders of camp called New Caprica by the Colonials, were making small talk. That could be passed along to others, in the cylon controlled camp if overheard. Across the planet another group of leaders of humans were also in a meeting. The Triumvirate was setting around a table in main open part of Warehouse One. They were reviewing the preliminary report they had been sent about the attack or massive ambush of the cylons. They had only had six people reported as being seriously injured, in the complex action. Two of them were listed as still being in critical condition at the time the report had been transmitted to them. They had been put on a pair of modified medical hover cycle, to make it back to home base. As fast they could, but still not risking their passengers strapped to the sides of the speed machines. The help from some of the Colonial personnel had come up with a very refined idea of the ambush was noted a few times in the report that soon would be posted to the village information network. The three leaders had not been 100 percent sure that the idea they had been kicking around, would have worked in the first place. They all knew that just because it made sense to them, did not mean that it was a good plan in real life.

One of the things pointed out to them beforehand. Was what, if the ambush was very successful? That now, any Colonial type transmitter would be safe from a major attack. For the simple reason that the cylons would think it was another ambush waiting to kick them in the teeth. That was what the Colonials had said, from long experience of fighting these cylons. So to test this theory that had been offered by many different localized groups. Starting at dawn three different Colonial like transmitters, would start alternating in job of screaming for attention. They each would be doing that for one hour each day, but two would never be going at the same time. The plan was that all of them would be unmanned and non-moving. That main reason for that was because the leadership, to include Major Weston, were split on whether or not the cylons would launch another attack on them. Or maybe just blast the sites from orbit with heavy missiles, and equally heavy warhead. They still were not all fully on board with that plan, and the three would have to have a final vote before the transmitters given the work to go active. Captain Kelly had told Major Weston. He was better than 50/50 sure, that they would vote to have them turned on the transmitters. That is, unless they had a major setback of some kind, before the vote was taken. Things like that were known to happen like that during a time of armed conflict. An enemy tended to have his own plans that had a tendency to interfere with whatever you were planning.

They spent most of the time of this meeting reviewing the updated salvage list that had come to them from a number of different sources. It was not a complete list, but it looked like they were able to pull weapons mounts from a few Raiders and every Heavy Raiders. Before the second force of cylons got too close to the decoy/ambush site. It was not as many as they would have liked, but it was something. Given the rules about transportation they had to work with. The three leaders knew that they were lucky to get much of anything from the attack. These weapons would be invaluable in testing, along with large sections of the flying craft's hulls. These section also had been collected from the site, and soon could be used as targets for detailed weapons testing. They also now had a steady supply of refined metal coming in, since the word had been given to go to war. What was reported to be a large amount of metal salvage was going to be a boon for the whole settlement.

Another big issue they had to work threw was not so clear cut. The questioning of the cylon prisoner had spurred them on into action before the ambush had happened. She had been very helpful so far, and she had been offered a change to escape three times. And so far she had not taken any of the bait, to try to make a run for it. She was not trusted, but it was moving that way faster than the three men would have thought possible on the first day of her arrival at the Settlement. They were working on a few more test or set ups, to see if this was a fake out or something. But it was looking like she was moving status, form POW to something else. She was able to explain a lot about the technology the cylons used, and even the Colonial's technology. That made since after a bit of confusion, because it was the original base the cylons to work with after the civil war.

They even let Number Eight, called Kathy; try to hack a SAMAs suit a few days ago. It was a completely unarmed suit, and the pilot had his hand on the physical kill switch at all times. After hours and hours of trying, she was not able to successfully access the systems on the other wise fully operational flying combat suit. With the failed attended to access the suit's systems. She had also lost a chance to take an underwater tour, of the massive reef at the head of the bay. It had been the one that she had been asking about every day after being showed some images of it. She had been developing a fascination with the local seaborne wild life, not long after she had been brought to Safe Port Bay. A deal had been quickly struck, between her and the leadership of the hidden Settlement. She would get a guided tour of the reef, if she could hack the suit. If she failed in the attempt? Then she would not get a trip to see the colorful fish at the head of the bay. It was assessed that she had tired her hardest to "win", and had seemed very disappointed that she had failed. They had even used input from a few of the Colonials, and her. To modify the defense plan for the Settlement, so that it could be better defended against any cylon attacks from both the ground and air.

However the food supply situation for the Settlement was not as going as well as hopped for. One good option had come up to help fix the current problem and, maybe the longer term issues about food. The option or plan had been started by the scouts Eva and Amazon's and there little group of close net friends. They had taken over a large cave system nearest the Settlement, some time ago. They had asked for "ownership" of that cave systems almost a year ago, and it had been granted. They had not been used for anything that the Trio knew about for some time, it was just sitting empty as far as anyone knew. That had changed and it had not been noticed for some time. The pair had used the money they can come into with the rewards to good use. They had been able to acquire everything they need to turn the cave, into a massive underground hot house for growing large amounts of food in a shorter length of time. They had first closed off the mouth of the cave as deep as they could use at the time. Then they closed off any unwanted exits for about 1000 feet into the huge cave system. The next step was for them to put in another insulated barrier in that closed off area totally segregating from the rest of the cave system. They were even able to acquire a limited amount of fluorescent lights for the cave. They had fixtures made, that were mounted on adjustable rails system, so that the light could stay six inches above the new plants without support. Then they were able to buy what they needed build a nice sized bioreactor. It can make heat and fertile soil all at the same time. And it could do it out of any organic material, which had been available around the place for fee.

The hardest part of the plan to get the operation going, had been the reason no one had done this before. They were not the first ones to come up with an idea like this. That major hurdle had been getting an energy source powerful enough to power all of the grow lights, and provide all the heat they need, just to make it work on this cold planet. Everyone knew that it took a lot of BTUs to make rock walls warm, the first time. The Trio knew that these cost had drained the scout's impressively large credit accounts quickly. But somehow the group had come up with a novel combination system, which used some solar cells and two long E-clips to do the job. The system taken a long time to figure out and who knows how many trials and errors, but it worked now. From what the leadership had found out, with its list of informants. It was expandable to support a larger growing area, than they had working on right now. It was expected that when Amazon and company were able to get more capital on hand. They were going to be able to grow, and sell even more food than half the rest of the settlement combined. There were quite a few people in the settlement that were kicking themselves, for not think of something like this before the two scouts and their friends had.

The three men were now thinking about given the group some kind of reward for their ingenuity. The group had shown that by spending their credit carefully. They had driven and developed solution that had not been supported, before they had stepped up and paid for it. Now between the high tunnels green houses, low tunnels green houses, and this new cave system growing system they all were great ideas in standalone. This group, led by those two women, had already help doubled food output of the Settlement. That should have been worth something as a thank you. Besides the first crops were not even been harvested yet, from the cave growing area. They should be given something to show the appreciation of the leadership for their actions before they started making a profit on their newest idea. That was going to take some out of the box thinking by the three men, but they had a few ideas to kick around. That is before they did anything, they wanted also to make sure the last idea worked as well as it looked like it should.

In a few weeks the first crops of Radishes, Green Onions, Lettuce and Carrots would be hitting the market and cooking pots not long after that. They were on a cycle system, which the group would have more of those items hitting the market every thirty days or so. Ten pounds of each of those fresh greens will go quickly, with 4,000 people wanting them. It would not make even a small dent if they were talking about helping feed something like 50,000 more people, but it was a start. That alone was worth ignoring the missing light bulbs, from the less used part of the ships, if they could get more food. Captain Kelly hopped that this idea would catch on quickly with some of the other that have anything like green thumbs. It did not help much when they had found out that the Colonials were short people, who knew how to garden much less run a farm. Then add on top of that the Colonials did not have any of the equipment needed to do the job in the first place. They were supposed to have some manufacturing ability, on some of the ships that pulled out when the invasion began. That would help a lot in future. That is if they had not been blown up by the cylons, yet. Or if people from Earth could get access to them sometime in the somewhat near future. Besides who would not trade some fresh greens, for a few light bulbs? That would be a good trade on any day.

The topics for tonight's meeting went even farther afield, farther than they had planned on in fact. They talked about whom had legal claimed this planet? How were they going to deal with in influx of a population, which was an order of magnitude larger than their own? What to do with the number of issues coming up about religion from these Colonials already? How might they be able to use these people, and there spaceships to get home again? They also talked about the end state of this war with the Cylons. It was a full night of meetings, because they still had to deal with the things that always tended to come up out of the blue. That happens when you were governing a group of humans, which had come from different backgrounds and were stuck in basically one place.


	21. Chapter 21 chpt some assembly required

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

I'm still looking for a Beta reader and help, no one has come forward yet. Sorry guys, but I'm still trying. Also I understand that when I posted chap 10B it did not send notices that I had updated the story or even refresh the info on the preview. So you might want to read that part, if you have not do so yet.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

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 **Chapter 12 some assembly required**

 **Three days later.**

 **Human Refugee camp.**

This was the largest meeting of leadership of the Refugee Camp, which had been called New Caprica or New Caprica City ever called. That new title had not gone down well with the Colonials that lived in the mud lane village. But it was accurate name, even if it was not flattering one. It was slowly be used more and more, among the camps inhabitants in every day conversation. There were only three people in this meeting today. They were Laura Roslin, Saul Tigh, which were normally making the decisions. The new addition was a single representative from one of the different religions sects, which was called David Formosus. Laura and Saul both did not want him there, but David had a fallowing that could not be ignored. Or at least, it could not be ignored for long among with what remained of the 12 Colonies of man. This meeting had been demanded to happen by this religious leader, very forcibly. The first two demands had been delivered to Saul. It had not gone very well for the messenger, on both visits to notify him of the demand. The next request had come through…other channels to Roslin. Now he was sitting at the table with the two leaders, with a very smug look plastered on his young face. As soon as he had entered the tent and took his seat, he had started this confrontation with the other two people in the main tent.

This latest confrontation had started, when word had somehow leaked out to a set of the wrong ears. That Tyrol had a communication device, and that he was able to get a message to Admiral Adama, a few hours ago. Roslin already knew that Saul was working on finding out who might have been the leak of that little fragment of information. He said, that he planned on plugging the Fraking leak and make it so that the leaker would not be able to leak anymore. How he was going to do that particular feet? Roslin had no idea, and she was not going to ask. But she did hope that not much blood would be shed, when he found the information leaker in question. Then again after this meeting was over, she might feel like helping the old warhorse find the leaker herself.

Roslin looked across the handmade wooden table at the new addition to the meeting, and was not impressed with what she saw. David was an up and coming power player in one of the larger temples on Old Caprica, that had been before the cylons had attack anyway. As luck would have its fickle way. He had been off planet, on some kind of undisclosed personnel business trip. When the cylons wiped out his home planet, and all of the temps he had work his way up through. He had recovered quickly, and had started worming his way into a leadership role very quickly while on the run from the rest of the cylon fleet. He reminded Roslin of a strutting chicken, she had seen once a lifetime ago. She was sensing a power grab of some kind coming, and it was radiating from the young man across the table from her. When she felt like the time was right she would make her move. Right now they were, just setting at the table looking at each other. This was not going to get the job done. "Well now to get this over with." The ex-president thought to herself, but Saul was thinking the same thing. Roslin could read it on Saul's face, that he was about to let his personality out if its' box. And he it looked like he did not have a leash with him. She folded her arms on the table top, and eye locked the youngest man at the table. She needs to take control of this meeting, or Saul was going to do it quickly and without political care in the world. That might turn out to be a bad thing… possibly. She moved one hand below the table top, and used it to signal Saul to calm down, and that she had a plan. She was able to convey those thoughts with only a single finger, and not looking at the head of the military arm of the Colonial Resistance. She was that good, at her profession, no matter what this young daggit might think about her.

Roslin was waiting for the young man to speak first. Saul was Fraking pissed off, and the truth was that he did not trust his voice. So he also was being quiet, and for now at least. And he was willing to let Roslin take the lead on this one. So it was David who had to speak first at this meeting. He knew as soon as he opened his mouth that he had lost this power play round, but deep in his mind he really did not believe it. He had already talked himself into believing that he had always intended to speak first. He sort of rocked back into his high backed chair and started speaking. "I am here as the representative of all of the Temples of the Colonies. I am here because, all of the temples are not happy with some of the decisions that are being made for the rest of us." He let his voice get louder, to just under a shout for his closing statement. He wanted it to add force, to the meaning of his next words. We will not stand for that!" The tone David used was the same tone, which he had used during sermons when he was still an entry level priest. Deep down, he knew that it conveyed strength, and dominance over the little people in the gathering he oversaw.

Roslin looked down her nose and over her glass at the boy. Then she leaned forward to place her pointed elbow on the table. She used one fist to hold her head, as see watch the boy like a hunting hawk would a rabbit. "Really? And what would those decisions be? This is the first time, I have heard of this problem. You know, I am kind of close to some of the surviving Temple elders, David. Why don't you, just tell me what is bothering you." Roslin intentionally said you, and not the Temple elders. She did not think that this young daggit would be able to notice the word choose. All the time she was speaking she had not move one fraction of an inch after placing her fist under her chin, as she watched her intended victim.

David had a smug look on his face, that both of the other people wanted to smack off his face. The second it marked his young freshly cut blonde hair topped face. "Your status as the leader of our people is also under review, by people with deepest of knowledge of the Scrolls. What I'm here to do today. Is to address many issues. One is why the Temples, were not the ones to properly distribute any new supplies? After all it is historically there job to do this task for The Colonies of Man." David's nose went up a little, like he was some kind of tent master that had smelled bad.

Saul could not hold it back any longer at the tone this little whelp was directing at Laura, and the not too veiled of a threat that had just made to her. He snorted and rocked back in his chair wooden high backed chair. He let his brain relax, and his mouth take over. "Roslin, what this little weasel is saying, without coming right out and saying it. Is that someone in the Temples wanted there cut, before a crumb makes it outside of their tents for the rest of us. And I would bet only crumbs, would have made it out of those fraking nests of vipers. When it was all said and the business was done." Saul's tone was dripping venom, and his eyes were leveled at the younger man. They were more like a battlestar weapons turret, than human eyes.

The young temple representative gave Saul an indignant look, but even he could not look directly into his eyes. He settled for looking just to one side, so it would look like he was making eye contact. That was how he had been trained to do when giving press interviews, in the political class in collage. "The temples and those people, who are in them, do "The Gods work". They have to be supported at all cost, or our very souls will be at risk for the blasphemy." It did not even dawn on David that other people might have needs, that should be met or there health would be in jeopardy. He was a priest, but in reality he was primarily a bureaucrat. And a very highly placed Bureaucrat at that, this was hard to hide in a population pool that was so small now. Game playing Bureaucrats can hide very well, when there are latterly millions or even billions of people to hide in. If there was one constant in this fraked up universe. It was that a bureaucrat, always felt like they should be the first called to the supply trough so that they could have their fill and a little more. No matter what had happened, they should be given first pick of anything that a community had. That was why bribery was so common among people like, David.

Roslin patted Saul on the hand that was now flat on the wooden table without moving her other hand, which had formed a fist her chin was resting on. She did in such a way that David could see her doing it. She was the corners of the young man's mouth turn down slightly at her actions. "Now, Now Colonel, dear." The tone that Roslin switched to, was one she had used before on certain 8 year old boys, but with a very mocking trace to it at the end. "Those people working at the Temples would never put their stomachs above those of others, or the less fortunate among use and in need. That would violate a number of the scrolls, I would think." She never let her eyes move of the other man, and she saw the slight uptick of David's lips on one side of his face. He must have thought that he had scoured a point in this game. That was not a good sign. It was also a sign that he is still on his game plan, but she did not know what it was yet and the cards he might have. "I will just have to see what buttons in I need to push," thought Roslin. As she kept her pose and let nothing show on her face as her mind worked. "We have been using this same method of supply, ever since the cylons attacked us. I can ask for a review of how the supplies are distributed, if you would like. This will require a panel be seated, and I don't think it should be private one. A more public format would have to be set up. It would also need to be made up of people who do not have an interest in the outcome, of whatever comes out of the Panel's decision in the end." Roslin's tone was a level and villanelle as she make it, but still keep her owl like pose.

David gave her a smile that reminded her, a lot of the one Tom had given her one time. That had been when he was secretly planning on being the next VP, and that he could have her killed after he had that job. Then he could have been the President of what was left of the human race, all legal like. The smile also looked a lot like the Number One called John had used on her before. With the smile still on his face David started talking, thinking that he had scored another point. "I think that I can give the other temple leaders the good news." He had no doubt, that he could stack any panel with the right kind of thinking people. With that battle won, he moved to the next item on his mental check list. "Another issue that is causing a large amount of concert for us, is about the contact with these people. You know the ones that are claiming to be from the 13 Tribe of Kobal." David did a dismissive jester with one hand and his nose went up in the air, like he had just walked by an open latrine.

Saul jumped in on this one, like a lake trout on the perfect looking fly. Like everything Saul Tigh did, he did with power and gusto, even if it might be the wrong move. "They have not claimed to be from the 13th Tribe. At least they have not to me, or anyone who I have talked to. Even those that also have had dealings with them out, in the forest all agree on that."

Saul was starting to turn a little red at the neck as the words come roaring out of his mouth, and if Laura was right. The red was going to start to both rise higher and go lower, on his pale skin old skin in the next few minutes. Right now Saul was wishing for a drink, and glad at the same time, that he did not have any on his person. Because if he had that alcohol in him, he might go from just thinking to doing what he was thinking about to this little fraker And what he was thinking was that he might do something, Bill would regret later…..again. Saul knew it would feel good, or even feel real good when he did it. But there would be blow back of some kind, even if he could not see it coming in his current mental state. It would be there, so he let it drop for now, and started to think about having a bit of his latest run of rotgut when this meeting was finally over. Than line of thinking was enough to get his mouth to stop working, at least for a little while.

The Temple representative squeezed his eyebrows together with exaggerated wrinkles on his forehead head. "I'm confused. I thought that they have been telling everybody that they are from Earth. Am I wrong about this information? The few briefings given to us, all have said that they were from Earth. Has some new information come in, or was there something to somehow cause a miss translation of some sort?" The look on the temple rat's face was confused, but still under controlled his full control. Not many would know weather this was for real, or he was playing a game of some kind being played.

Now it was Roslin turn to smile, but it was only a smile on the inside. She did not let her poker face crack, not even a little bit. She could tell that the look was as fake a three cubit bill. She wanted to keep all of her cards to herself for as long as she could. But it looked like she was right in guessing the game and the cards this rat was holding. "They said that they are from a planet, that they call Earth. However as they said many times, there are many planets with the name of "Earth". They just say that they, only come from one of planets. Which is called Earth by the people who live there. They had no idea about a 13th Tribe when they were asked about them. That story is pretty much the same, no matter who they ask. It would seem that you drew a line, were none was." Laure knew there were cards for the rat to play, and she waited for him to do so. It things went the way she was thinking that they would. It was going to get ugly very soon.

David gave a smile that would be called evil, no matter whose face it might have been on. "Good, then they are from the 12 Tribes of Kobal, and fall under our laws. Do I need to remind you what the Common Law view and sentence are on heresy?" He tilled his head to one side with a smug look on his face. He felt that now he was the teacher, and the older people on the other side of the table were the young ones to be schooled. He was sure that he had gotten the point across, and that soon his star would be on the rise again.

Saul let out a full belly laugh that was not out of joy, but out of cynicism. When he noticed the odd look that was coming from David, he quickly decided to come clean to the little young fraker. "Okay let me get this straight. You little Fraker! You want to charge the people who are helping us with food, weapons, body armor and that are killing cylons by the Fraking Raptor loads with heresy?" Saul shot a look at Roslin but he did not stop talking. "Roslin I thing this young man has been dipping your old Kamlia supplies, a bit heavily. You might want to see how much you have left. I am thinking that it might be all gone." Saul let his head turn again to look at the blonde wantabe man on the other side of the table. "Oh and on top of that you Frak for brains. These are the same people who are shipwrecked on this planet, but they have technologies that can stop a cylon from down loading into new bodies. That is something, I did not know was possible, and neither did the cylons from what our spies have told us." Saul held up two fingers, and started to slowly rise another one as he spoke "And oh by the way, they have Fraking man portable Direct Energy Weapons. Oh let's just think a little harder about that? They have Fraking Directed Energy Weapons!" Saul let his voice drop into a lower tone, and made eye contact with the younger man, and he gave a look that had made more than one enlisted or lower ranked officer sweat bullets in his day. "All of those things are so Fraking far beyond, what we could do back on our old planets. That you could only read about the ideas in bleeding edge tech bulletins, and that you little Fraker was even before the attack." Saul started laughing again, but it had a brittle edge to it as it filled the tent. "That it's not even a little bit Fraking funny, and you want to do something to them. What? Do you want to hang them? You want to make them publicly repent first, or just hang them? That is a Fraked up way to thank people who are helping us, bleeding for us, and making sure our young ones are healthy."

David gave the old bald man a sneer, which he hoped would showed that the look was not working on him. "Have you seen these any of supposed Magic weapons, Saul?" When the military man did not jump right back to reply to him, David let the sneer build. And he sat farther back in the cheap wooden handmade chair. David was already thinking about how soon he would be able to upgrade his furniture back in his ship's cabin. David did not sleep in a shack or even share his cabin with another person. That is unless she was pretty enough, and even then for a short length of time.

Saul looked a little uncomfortable to anyone who had a set of eyes, and then went into full defensive mode in a blink of an eye. "No I have not seen them, yet. You know that I have been stuck in this camp right along with you. But others have seen them, and they have reported back about how powerful their weapons are. More importantly, you have seen how the cylons are acting. That means that the cylons know who powerful our new friends are, and they are scared Frakless." Tigh had caught the implied insult of David's use of his first name without it being first offered.

David let the sneer on his face turned into a fake smile and his tone was mocking. "So you have reports. We have all heard that one before, Saul. Have you thought that the reason that the cylons are not working right, or as they are advertised to us about how they are supposed to be working. That it is because the Lords of Kobal, have deem this planet for humans, and not those abominations." He was tilting his head to one side again, and his smile was still there for both of the other leaders to see. He even had a gleam in his eyes, which should have told anyone that he truly believe every word that had come out of his mouth. He did not, but he had that kind of gift for lying.

Roslin was fighting not to smile at what the little rat had just said, and it was not easy even with all of her renowned political skills. David did not know it yet, but he had just slipped up big time. He did not know that, but Roslin most certainly knew it. Roslin open the way for this young daggit to truly have enough rope to hang himself with, but good. It was time for her to set the hook. "So let me get this straight, David. Now I'm not a military person by training or experience, I think you would agree with me on that point." She stopped talking for a few seconds, to let the young man think about her words before started up again. "You say that the Lords of Kobal have said, that this cold mud ball of a planet. Is for our use only, right?" Roslin took another breath, but she did not want to lose the momentum by delaying too much. "Then would you please explain to me. Why all of the cylons we have shot with Colonial military weapons, have come back to try to kills on another day. But the ones that these strangers have shot, really does kill them for good?" Roslin voice was sweat, and she even had a slight sly looking smile on her face as she finished her question. David should have run away screaming "it's a trap", but he did not. He was intending to stick to his guns and win.

Visibly David was not taking it well, that Roslin and the town drunk were punching holes in his belief structure and his ego with equal ease. And he made a predictable response, as quick as his mind could put the words together and for them to fall out of his slightly open mouth. "You should not blasphemy the Gods, Laura." David started wagging his finger at her like some youngling taking one too many sweats off the checkout desk. "There will be repercussions." David set up straighter in the home made wooden high back chair. He threw his shoulder back and his back was ram as rode straight as he could make it. He was about to deliver the word of the Gods, to the other two lowly mortals around the table. He first looked at the ex-President of the Colonies of Kobal. "You will not have any more contact with the heretics without my explicit say-so. You!" The young mans was now point a finger at Saul across from him and it had just a slight shake to it. "Will contact Admiral Adama, and tell him that he will launch an attack on these abominations now. This will be done, or I will have you both arrested for heresy. So say we all!" David had a full head of steam and was beating a fist on the table top as he finished the last words. He was not going to let these small people interfere with his calling. That calling was to save humanity, and take his rightful spot as the leader of the human race. Then he would lead it for the rest of his no doubt long life. He would be the High Lord of all, and not these uneducated and low born dregs of his great society.

David was so into his own tirade and feeling of self-worth that he did not realized, the other two people around the table were quite. They had not repeat the honored saying after him, as would be expected and demanded by their culture. He had even closed his eyes when he had said those hallowed words out of habit. Sensing something was wrong, he opened them slowly. Only to see the two older people looking at him, like had had a second head growing out of his shoulders or a Medusa's hair. He was so convinced of his own righteousness, that his brain could did not fully register that something was very wrong.

Roslin was looking at the young man, and she schooled her face as best she could so that it was perfectly still. But her mind was racing like a Viper going out of its launch tube. "This guy is totally fraking unhinged!" These were the reverberating words being shouted in her mind. Then her mind shifted gears quickly, and went to the real problem that was in front of her. "Now how do I get him out of this tent as quickly as I can? And still not have little fraker go running right into Baltar's office, and give us all up to be turned over to the Fraking cylons." This was not a great thought, which Laura had to herself. She had to come up with something to say very quickly, or things were going to go downhill. She could somehow feel that it could go that way, unless she could come up with something quickly and she did. "David, you have brought some very compelling arguments to us this morning."

Laura took a breath to help defuse the energy building up in the tent turned school house. "Can you give me and Colonel Tigh some time, to talk about this alone?" She held up her had to delay the building reply she could see building in the young man's face. She had a fleeting thought and it almost made her face brake under her control. That at the level this boy had been playing at, before the cylons had come. That he would have better control of what showed on his young and too pretty face. That was just too bad for him or he was just that out of practice. "It's only, so that we can work out how best to add you into the command structure without disrupting things too much. We are set up, in what Colonel Tigh calls a cell structure, so that the cylons will not get us all in one big sweep. Do you think that you would be up the challenge of being on this staff? It's critically important that we work this way for the good of our people." She had used Saul's military rank to reinforce that he was a Colonial Military officer. Laura knew that the Law on things this young daggit wanted to employ. It had some dangerous limits that should not be crossed, without deep thought. Thoughts that she was thinking that David had not spent the time on reviewing very much before today.

Now it was Roslin turn to get the "What the Frak are you thinking woman?" look from the Colonial Colonel sitting beside her at the table. The only thing that had stopped him from saying it out loud, was that David was now smiling broadly with lots of white teeth showing. He even was starting to rise from his chair at the table, almost like he had just won the planetary finals of Triad. Or as Saul would think of it, the cat that ate the song bird face.

David was not even looking at Saul out of the corner of his eyes, this was an oversight on the young man's part. He was completely focused on Roslin like a mongoose looking at a snake, and the massive win he thought he had scored on her today. "Thank you Laura. I told them last night, that you would be reasonable. All I had to do was show you the ways, which the Gods want us to go." The bad part was that he believed every word that had fallen out of his mouth, and even the tone that he was using was good and proper. It was just too bad that he had an un-diagnosed, but major case of pseudologia fantastica and mythomania.

Rosiln just gave one of her patented political smiles, and even reached over and shakes hand with the young man. "Yes David. Everything will work out for the betterment of New Caprica." What the young man did not seem to notice was that Roslin had shift positions, so that she had her other hand on leg of the military man's leg. Colonial Tigh was on the ragged edge of losing his self-control, and she just needed to get this lunatic out of her tent. That is before someone did something, which might have ugly repercussions, in both the short and long term outlook. It was a race to defuse the situation, with two different bombs setting beside her. She was just hoping that the left hand and the signals she was trying to send to Saul was enough. It was more of the point. Would it hold Saul Tigh at bay, long enough for David to get out of the tent?

David was so happy that he felt like his feet were not touching the wood flooring, as he made his way away from the table. He was already planning his next moves against both Roslin and the drunk, which thought they should be the leaders of the human race. He was already working out in his head, how he was going to get the next few pawns moved in the right direction to push forward his overall larger plan. In his mind he only needed a few more moves, and he would be the person in power over the lives on this planet and the space around it.

When the younger man had finally left the tent, Saul could not hold back his anger any longer. He was not even sure if the representative of the religious sects was out of ear shot or not. He could not careless, he just could not hold it back for one second longer. "What the Frak are you talking about Laura!" Saul had not bellowed, but that was just another sign. That Saul was about to explode all over the tent, that is unless he get some satisfaction right the Frak then from Roslin. Tigh was well known as a yell of the first order, but few knew something else about him. That was when Saul was not yelling and only talking loudly. Then things were about to go downhill on a nuclear scale of the same first order. Saul was almost in Laura's face as he spoke at her.

Laura Roslin just held one finger to her lips, so that Saul would shut his Fraking mouth for another few minutes and not torpedo some of her plans. She also wanted to make sure the object of his heat, was out of ear shot of the coming boom. When he sputtered to a stop at the signal, which she rarely used on him. His eyes were about to bulge out of his face. Roslin rose from her chair without making a sound, and went to the tent flap that leads to her small living area. When she was about ten feet from the closed flap, she started to speak at the fabric in a very mild tone. "Would you please join us now?" She stepped to one side of the tent flap, leaving an open path from her living area into the main area of the school tent.

To Saul's complete surprise six cloaked and hooded figures, slowly walked out of the little living area off to one side of the larger school tent. Until that very second, he had no idea that anyone else had been in the tent and privy to this very important meeting. Saul's head went from looking at the group to looking at the opening and was thinking. "They must have been packed in there, check to jowl and had not said or made any other noise for over an hour." Saul knew that they had to have been in the main tent area, a little longer than an hour. That was because he had no idea they had been back there or had any indications anything was off the entire time. Saul quickly thought it would be best to keep his big mouth shut for a few more seconds, and see what Laura had planned out. Really it was the shock of these unknown face covered people that kept his mouth from moving any more. It would take some effort after shock wore off. To kept his lips from parting, and letting something dumb slip from his lips. That is before his brain could stop it, again.

Roslin had her hands clasped behind her back and was looking at the six robed figures, as they stopped moving and stood in a line before for her. They had silently formed a line, but they always kept the hoods down and were covering their faces. She did a quick look down the line of figures in front of her. That was before she started talking at them, and not to them. She was in full leader mode and don't frak with me. "I take it you all heard, what was said in this meeting?" She waited till the all six of the hooded people, as they nodded their heads in agreement that they had heard the total exchange during the leadership meeting. "I will leave this issue alone. And I will treat this matter, as an internal matter to be handled as you all see fit. However I want to remind you all, that I will be watching. I think you know that he is a threat to the safety for what remains of our people. Please don't make me take actions against your young lion, so you need to do it quickly. I will, if I have to, but I will have to make my actions and the reason I moved against him public. By public, I mean very public, and most likely very messy. Do we have an understanding?" She tilted her head to one side, all the time her face held no emotions as she spoke.

She was answered with six soft voices coming from under the cloth hoods. All pitched low and very nondescript voices, which sounded as if only one person had spoken the reply. "Yes Madam President. So say we all." The six figures turned as one, and slipped out the main tent flap into the mud path outside. Roslin did not care who saw them leave, it was up to them to keep a low profile. As far as she was concerned, they were just six people. That might be part of any of a number of religious orders that been among the refugees from the start of the cylon attack.

Roslin did reply with the words of faith this time, but it also was just as soft as the group that had left her tent had spoken with. That group would have taken offense, if she had not. When the tent flaps were still closing behind the group of hooded people. She turned to see a very stunned Saul Tigh, doing some dead fish, mouth movements. He was at a complete loss, about what had been going on not twenty feet from where he had been sitting for over an hour. Roslin gave a sly smile, and decided that she would wait to see how long Saul could be quite for. Much to her disappointment, it was not that long after all. Saul was incapable of keeping his mouth shut that long, no matter what was happening. It was almost like he was programed that way.

Finally Saul said something, which was considered just typical of the man. "Laura would you please." Saul stopped talking for a few seconds, and worked his mouth from side to side. Then he threw his hands in the air in abject confusion. "What the Frak just happened?"

Roslin smiled a little bigger, and returned to her seat at the table near the old warhorse. She still pitched her voice low, to hint that Saul might also want to do the same at least for the time being. "Why Saul, we were just helping a powerful faction or power block. Our little group meeting was able to handle…a problem. And we did it before it became too public for them to handle effectively." The smile on Laura's face was not friendly, and was just plain evil looking. "And now Saul, they owe us a favor. A very big favor indeed and one, that we might need to call on sooner than I would like to." Roslin let the smile drop, and let her face go blank. She now wanted get to the information, which she really wanted to know. And that this meeting had been supposed to have given her, until she had found out that the young lion was coming. Then he had to change her plans at the last minute. "So what did Bill really say? When you contacted him about the other group that is help us? Roslin tilted her head to one side, and waited for the reply. She was glad that she had canceled class today. It was looking like she was going to not have any spare time today.

Saul rubbed his bald head with both hands back and forth with some vigor. The change of subject was too a little fast for him, and he needed a few seconds to get his thoughts together. "He said that they had already picked up some of their transmissions. But since they were in the wrong codes, he just thought they were cylons playing some communication tricks from the last war…..again. I'm just glad that crazy Fraker hopped onto a Raptor so fast. That we could talk some things out without having to use a middle man shuttling back in forth between this solar system, and wherever they are hiding. I don't think we could have gotten half of what were able to cover, if we had to do that shuttling crap. Plus there was no telling how much, might have been lost or confused. In-between the, who knows how many jump flights it would have taken."

It had only been a few days ago. That they had powered up the hidden communication device, and started to try to reach the Admiral with it. And to their surprise, they had made contact on only the third try in the first day. It was not released information to the rest of the refugee camp. That they had made contact with the only human crewed warships, that anyone on this planet knew about. Roslin had wished that she could have been able to hear Bill's voice herself. But she and Bill would have considered that to be an abuse of power in their eyes, even if no one else would have said a word about it. Now all of that information would have to come to her, via second hand sources. She was thinking to herself, but they only had to do that for now. She gave her head a slight shake, to get her train of thought back on track. She needed to ask a question that had to be addressed. "So do you thank Bill will trust them, or not?"

Saul rubbed his head again this time with only one had, and he sagged a little in the high backed wooden chair. "Nah. Not yet at least. But he trusts you, and if you say that they are good people. Then he will give them enough rope to hang themselves real Gods damn good, let me tell yea." Saul would not let on, how much finding out that Bill was still alive lifted his spirits. Much less hearing his longtime friend's voice had helped him mentally. Right up to that second. He had half believed the cylons. When they had said, that they had blasted all of the ships that had been orbit into dust. On that first day of their return to frak with his people.

"Can we get the updated codes to them in time, for a three way communications by next week?" Roslin was pressing now, and she did not have to say who "them" were. She also had no idea about the codes. She had just assumed that you would turn on the blasted thing and talk, and then the people on the other end would talk back to you. After all it was not like she had any experience with something like this before the attack on her people.

Saul gave an odd look to Roslin, and leaned forward to put some of his weight on the wooden table top. The handmade table gave a slight grown as it took the weight, which drew both people's eyes for a second. Saul had several options he could have given her, but went with the one that he like most of the short mental list of replays. If she did not like the one he picked, then he could go down the list of other options he had come up with before he had walked into this tent. "I can send Duck out the tunnel in a few hours. That is if you give the word, that it is okay for us to send the codes. There will still be some daylight left, so even with the tunnel. This will have some bit of risk attached, when they get out in the open while the sun is up." He stopped talking and looked at Roslin, who was sitting very still, and was seemingly waiting for him to continue. Saul gave a slight nod of his head, and got to the point. She had asked for his opinion and she wanted it. "Laura, I think it would be worth it. The faster he starts on the trip. The faster he can get to the nearest transportation device, which we know our new friends keep close by."

Roslin took some time to think about what the military man had said, but she kept her body as still as death. She was dealing with something that could mean the death of one or more humans, and she would not take that lightly. No matter some around the camp might think. They could wait till it was full dark, and it would be safer. The down side was she had to weigh, if they could they risk the loss of time this would cause versus the possible loss of a human life. From what Tyrol had said, this Safe port Bay Settlement, as they called it, was quit some distance away from this field. Maybe even all the way on the other side of the planet, from where the Colonials had landed. It was not like they could just jump in a Raptor or something like that. Roslin had to keep the smile off of her face, as she thought about what to do. "Frak, now that would be a short trip. Walking or driving that kind of distance, was a completely different story and a major planning obstacle to get around. Then add on to it. That you were going to have to do without being found out by the cylons that controlled the skies. "Send him out now Saul. Time is the main issue, that we have to deal with for right now." She stopped talking for a second. She had given her orders, but she was not done yet. "Also see if you contract in Colonial One, can somehow get some good digital images of the damage being done to the Tin heads so far. We can send them to Bill the next you talk. It could work as proof that they have some special kind of firepower, which I would bet that he has never heard about. Speaking of your contact there in that den of Vipers, are you ever going to tell me who this contact might be?"

Saul almost choked on the drink in he was sipping. He had not expected that question to come out, after she had approved Duck leaving again. After some sputtering and losing over half of his drink. He was ready to speak in a more normal tone of voice. "Even if I Fraken knew who it was? I would not tell you Laura. You know as well as I do, that you can't tell those Frakers what you don't know. I will tell know that when this is over, we will owe whoever it was a box full of medals. That is if they or any of us are alive when this is all fraking over." This made both of them look down at their hands, and think about those that had dies already just on this rock. Something clicked into Saul's head, and it was out of his mouth before he could stop it. "Laura have you noticed that some of those human looking Frakers, are a little more jumpy than normal? Do you think it's true that they got there metal heads handed to them…. again? What do your sources say? Mine are as dry up as Baltar's heart right now."

Roslin was on her way to sitting down from getting some more water for both of them to drink. She looked down her glasses at Saul Tigh. "First off, Saul it is when this war is over. Or at least when we don't have the cylons holding us down anymore. We are going to need to know who he or she is. I know you have some ideas, and are keeping them to yourself. I'm okay with that, Saul really I am. What is that old saying Bill like to say?"

"You will have to separate the goats, from the sheep at some time." Was quickly supplied along with a snort by Admiral Adama's best and only friend, which Laura knew about or had ever heard Bill talk about. Well ones that were still above ground anyway. What he did not say, was that he did have a good idea who might be feeding them all of this golden bits of information. More to the point he knew, who he needed to talk to who really did know who his golden goose was. That person was in a different resistant cell, and almost never was seen with in two hundred feet of Saul or Laura. That was as close as Saul would let it get.

Roslin smiled a sad little lonely smile as she the image of Bill floated threw her head. "That was it. I always wondered where he comes up with some of those lines. One of these days I'm going to have to make him write them all down." With another shake of her head, she got back to her line of thinking. "I think that one fits. Even if it might be a bit early, and things can and I no doubt will go wrong before we are done. We need a way to know who has working for us, against us, or just stayed on the sidelines until the smoke cleared." Roslin quickly change subjects, so that she could address what Saul had asked her. "Yes, I did notice them. And I was going to ask you the same thing. You just beat me to it, and no I have no idea. As far as what is happened out there beyond the wood line. I don't know a damn thing, and I wish we did. I was hoping that one of the people coming through the tunnel would talk about it or had given you something, by now. I see that, this has not happened. When Duck is sent out ask him to see what he can find out and get it back to us." Roslin made a lip biting face as she was speaking. The smile had quickly fallen way from her face. These days if it showed up at all, it was only for the briefest of moments.

Roslin stopped talking with a click of her mouth closing, and went into deep thought mode for a few minutes. She was about to make a major change in policy, and she did not know if it was a good idea or not. She knew as soon as she opened her mouth, she was committed for good or evil. "I think you should ask "them" about it yourself instead, tonight. Why don't you make contact with them? What do they call that thing…. Radio that's it. It would be a good way to start the information exchange, on none sensitive issues." She has said the Radio in pretty plain English with a good bit of the Caprican accent slipping in. One part of her brain was wondering how long it would take for other Earther words to start to slip into every day usage.

She went into thinking mode again and stopped talking. Saul was waiting for her to finish her line of thought, almost scared to interrupt her. "What an odd word, I wonder how they come up with it. I will say that it does roll off the tongue don't you think?" Roslin face went poker playing or in political mode again. "Saul, do you think Ellen is with us or not? I don't want to put you on the spot about her. But Saul, if she lets something slip." She was shaking her head from side to side very slowly. "Then anyone that is going out the tunnel, are going to be shot down. Just like the ones who tried to sneak out before and were caught by the cylons. If you're not sure, about her being able to keep her mouth shut? Then, I want the Radio moved over to Tyrol's place. From what I have heard, he is firmly on the wagon again. And it seems to be back to as normal, as anyone else in this Hades hole can be. We can move it somewhere else that is more secured, later."

Saul was not happy about what Laura had just said, and he also not liking what he was thinking after she had said it. He had no idea, that all of his emotions were playing across his old face for anyone in the tent to see. Saul loved Ellen, but she had been drinking more than ever. This was no mean feat for the woman to accomplish. She had been known to be able to put away the ambrosia in bucket sized lots, even before the cylons sneak attack. Saul knew, from long experience, that when she was deep into the bottle it could be trouble. She would often forget and say something, which she should not have been talking about in public. She would say it in front of God's knew who, and she would not care that she was doing it. Saul quickly remembered that more than once over the last few weeks. He had to makeup cover stories to protect people, because she had said something while drunk in front of the wrong person. Saul rolled his lips into a tight line. "She is with me, but." He stopped talking and deflated a little before completing this thought out loud. "I will have the radio thing moved over to Tyrol's sometime today anyway, just in case. When we need to use it, we can go over to his place. It would be easier anyway, because he is well known to the cylons as being bachelor again. And it's also known that he has not hooked up with anyone yet. Now back to speaking of goats, I want to start looking into what is going on with Starbuck. We don't know if she is alive, or not. If we can at least find out if she is with the Gods or not, that would be helpful to Bill." Saul stopped talking again, and drummed his fingers on the table top for a second or two. The next part he would need her approval to do, and he was not sure he wanted to ask. With a slight sigh, he decided to go with is original idea. "I might need to dip into the bribe stash to find out anything worthwhile."

Roslin gave a thin face look to the other man, and did not say anything for a while. Soon the air got quite between them like the calm before the storm. She knew that Bill thought of that crazy Fraking woman, as his own blood daughter. And more importantly, she understood why he felt that way about her. Roslin also knew that, Starbuck had pulled off more than one trick, which had ended up saving the whole refugee fleet in her time in a Viper. As well as during other events outside of a Viper, that just happened to have surrounded her. The last was reason alone was enough to reach into some "extra" trade goods to find out what happened to her. Besides if she was still alive, Roslin was betting that very soon. They were going to need any and every combat pilot Bill could get their hands on, again. "I will also see what I can dig up, but yes dip into the bribe items, if you have to. But keep it under control, and as quite as you can. We might need that stuff later, to save our lives."

Roslin stopped talking and her eyes shot up, breaking her poker face. A thought had popped into her head. After quickly working all of the angles she could see, she let an evil smile come to her face. "That blond cylon keeps coming by the school, and asking what it can do to help out. I might be able to see if it knows anything of use for us." Roslin did not even notice that she had called the cylon an IT. As far as she was concerned, they were machines to her. No matter what they may look like on the outside. The two continued to work in the now truly empty school tent. Outside the tent, cold wet wind blew across the muddy field that had been turned into their prison.

###########

About the same time, across the planet at a place that was normally referred to simply as "The Settlement" a different meeting was being held. This meeting was being held with a few more people than the other human meeting. This time the meeting was being held in the belly of the hard metal and ceramic hulled ship called the Lucky Find. This meeting was going to cover something's, which the three men in charge. Did not want to make it to the ears of the rest of the people living in the slowly growing town. At least not as quickly, as was it normally would have. If they held the meeting at Warehouse One, it would be over heard by dozens and dozens of people. Then that information would be passed to more ears, at near the speed of light. By the end of the average meeting, easily a hundred people would know what had been disused and decided on in the meeting.

Captain Kelly was smiling at the other men around the ship's table, and a group setting in chairs along one wall that made up the meeting room. He was shaking his head from side to side and was letting a light tone color his voice. "So the Amazon and crew, did it to everyone again?" Now he waited for the rest of the room to stop laughing at his statement. Eva and Robin were both, well-liked by most people that had ever met them. At least the ones that were not overly jealous of the pairs repeated and public successes over these eighteen months or so.

The XO of the Lucky Find, Sophia Ryan spoke up first as the laughing fell away, and it was comfortable to speak over the noise. "We don't think so." She stopped talking when all eyes turned to look at her viper fast. When all eyes were on her with looks of disbelief on most of those faces. "Don't get me wrong. It was her group, which were the first ones to jump on it with capital to perchance enough of the right equipment. Now that the information has gotten out, and your guess is as good as anyone's on how it was given out or leaked out." She stopped talking for a second, and locked eyes with her Captain. She was almost sure she knew "who" had leaked the information, but she could not bet on it. "We now have a waiting list on any more of those components, which might come in from the combat zone from now on."

The Captain of the Lucky Find was shaking his head, and then looked around the room. He did not answer his XO's unasked question, if he was the one that leak the information in questions. "Do we need, or will it even help. If we put a reward out for these items, to maybe increase the possibility of their recovery post contact?" The word contact sound a lot better than other adjectives like say slaughter, massacre or wiped out to the last moving cylons.

Kelly was rubbing his chin at what his fellow ship's captain had said. He was glad this was not coming at him cold or flat footed, he had already thought of that idea. "I think we might want to hold off on the extra reward, for now. I think that we ought to let the information percolate out on its own to Major Weston and his troops. I don't think it will take long, for it to get out. That the chest, and right upper leg of the Centurions. Both have something of high value to people back home." Kelly started to shake his head in wonderment. "Who would have thought that the main power supply, for those machines was in the lower chest and the backup power supply would be in the right thigh." Design wise, it was a perfect location to protect them from battle damage. That was because most troops shot for the head, or center mass of the machines. Doing those two things improve their chances of a hit, or hard take down of the enemy combat machine. If you were limited to the weapons technology that the cylons and Colonials were bring to the battlefield.

Kelly brought himself, mentally back to the table. "If we can find out, who was the person that was able to figure that out? And that with a few common spare parts. They could turn the junk, into something very useful. Oh and let's not forget, that these parts are also some of the easily reproducible ones, made by one of 3D printers on top of all of that. Well that is, something we should reward with at least some kind of acknowledgement. That is some way out of the box thinking on someone's part, and they should be acknowledged."

They had found four of the massive 3D printers in the cargo hold. Along with about ten tons of the printing matrixes for them in the same cargo hold, when they had come to this planet. That much matrix would have been able to supply their old destination, for about year or so of normal production output. Here on this cold planet supporting a lot smaller population base. It was going to end up last them much, much longer than the one year. It was not a limitless supply, and it was not because they had been limiting the use of those devices to stretch the limited supplies. That kept the devices still running at almost full rated capacity. Without having a lot of refined metal around to use, the 3D printers were working overtime. The reason for extend time line of use, was that they had been able to find a replacement for most of printer matrix. Right here on this planet and in a river bed, only a few hundred miles from the Settlement. This massive resource covered over 90% of the supplies need to support all of those printers. Those four printers were making the only new spare parts the Safe port Bay Settlement had access to at this time.

Paul Carr looked around the room before he said anything. He did not like talking in these meetings, if he did not have to. But it seemed to him, that no one else was going to bring something important up. So he did after taking a steadying breath. "Does anyone know why they wanted all of those power supplies? They were able to pick up all of those 400 torsos and upper legs. That was almost all, that they were able to send back from the attack on our decoy transmitter. They have those, along with every other one that they could get their hands on? What are the capabilities of these power supplies they were able to pick up?"

Kelly turned to look at Paul, but kept his face blank, he blinked a few times. Then he reached down, and pulled out his pocket computer. That had been an off the wall question, and he had to check his notes to see if he had the information with him. It also was a very good question, and he was both surprised that no one else had asked that question, and that normally quiet Mr. Carr that had done the asking at this meeting. "I don't know how true my information is, because it has only come from one source. That is, that it was the cylon POW who gave it to us, and she admitted that she was not that well versed about the internal working of the Centurion. We also could not get that much detailed information about the Centurions from the Colonials. There only experience with them, is that they are unstoppable machines of war, and very good at taking human life."

Kelly looked around the table at the other two leaders and gave him each a nod of their heads, before saying another word. "Okay." Kelly started reading the intelligence report. "The Centurions can operate for a dozen hours between recharging, at a full military or combat load. The secondary or back up power supply, is supposed to be good for two more hours of operation at the same level of effort. When some of our tech people ran those power numbers, they come up with a rough comparison the output to our E-clips."

The three leaders had already heard this report, but it had been some time ago. It also had been decided that it should not be made public knowledge. This information was new for the other people in the room, and well this was hitting them for first time flat footed. Kelly stopped talking to make sure they all were paying attention to what he was about to say. "For the size, weight, and mass of the power supplies, it would put them at about 50% of the capability of an old E-clip of the same size." He let that set in, before he moved on with repeating the report. This was the closest that any Colonial or cylon technology had been, to anything that the two ships had brought to this world. At least it was the closest that had been found and reported all the way back to them. Oh and they have space ships, and a way to go between the stars, all things the Rift Earthers had no idea how to do. Other than that the Colonials and Cylons were very far behind in the tech gap on the battlefields of this planet. The news about the "power supplies" reinforced that the cylons were not that far behind what the Settlement knew about.

When the rumblings stop, Kelly continued to read the report on his screen. It would have been faster if he would have just pushed it to the network, but then everyone would have access to it at the same time. "What you all might be wondering is what they were able to get power supplies for. I will say that they did not get the whole set of parts. They only picked up the power supplies of the parts. They were able to pick up those sub-systems for a half pound of fresh food for each system, or one E-Clip recharge chit. Before anyone gets heart burn about the price they paid. That was the scrap value and the posted price of whole chunks of metal, so that did not do anything wrong. They just were the first ones to come up with a use for those unknown items under the armor, and over the internal skeleton of those certain parts. I would bet the prices will get higher, at the next action for the salvage we have on hand by then." Kelly took a breath, and looked around the room again. It appeared to his trained eyes that no one seemed to want to interrupt him with questions, just yet. "Now from what I was able to find out", he looked over to a particular person in the group. Kelly let a smile come to his face, but he kept eye contact. "I will not be submitting a bill for the drinks that I had to buy to find this out, even If I really should. Man could that woman put them away, when she wants a drink or six. I think she must save it up when she is out in the field, and cannot get anything harder than tea. I can, however, confirm without a doubt. That the stories are true, Amazon has a hollow leg." This drew a loud and long bout of laughter from the gathered personnel in the room.

Kelly had a smile on. As everyone let the tension bleed out in the joke he had surprised everyone with. When the sound died down of its own accord, Kelly started up again. "Now for what all of those drinks bought me. The group found out from a third party, about how it might be able to hook up these power supplies to run their lights and any added heat generators the can rig up . Those heating units are the ones that they might need in there grow caves that they are exploiting. I took this information, and ran some number on my ship's computers. With their renewable energy resources they already have on hand today, and these new power supplies. They would not need to buy or trade for any recharges chits for a year, to up to a year in a half at their current scale of use for electrical power."

When Kelly looked around the room, he knew they were not connecting the dots, and did not understand the major issue about to hit them in the face. He did not make face as he decided that he would have to do the connecting of all of those dots for them. "If they lock up that much income, and don't use it. It could cause extreme issues for how our monetary system, that we have set up and running so far." This was something that he had only become aware of after review the data. Luckily he had briefed this fellow member of the Triumvirate, as soon as he saw the train wreck coming. That had been another ugly meeting.

The only other ship's captain and member of the Triumvirate squeezed his lips into a thin line, he was about to have to help the meeting along. He looked around the group, but did not look at the others around the outer edge of the room. Before he could say something, a different voice broke the air. "Do we need to do something like a tax or seize something? Only to make things equalize out somehow before things can collapse." This came from that outer edge of the meeting room, which caused eyes to turn it its direction.

A grumble came from the others in the room that was almost sub vocalized. It was always a dream to be able to make it big. Only because you had a great idea, and acted quickly on it before anyone else beat to the punch. To hear someone wanted to change the rules, without notice or a change in the laws, did not sit so well. Now someone had lucked out, and where on the road to extreme success, and now someone wanted to have the rules changed on them. Only because they were doing so well, that was not going to set well with anyone. That was true in the meeting, and with the larger population of the Settlement.

Kelly did not expect that to come up, so he was a little slow coming back with something to say to address this issue. After a few long seconds he worked out most of the angles, he had talked about them before with the other two. Now he was going to drop on the rest of the governing body. "I don't think that will be necessary. I did not really want to cover this yet, but looks like I will now." Kelly looked around the room and his face was very serious. "I will need to ask everyone to keep this next bit of information quite for a while longer. That is because it would not be fair to those two, if there competitors found out what their long term plans might be." He got nod from everyone in the room as he slowly turned his head to look at each person. He had only to look at one person, for a few seconds before the last one agreed to his terms. If anyone had not agreed to his requirements, they would have been asked to leave the room until he was done and asked to return to the meeting. And it was also a good chance that they would not be allowed, into another meeting at this level again. This had happened twice before, and the two persons were known to have had very hurt feeling about the event. "I want to let everyone know that I am serious. If it leaks out, I will demand satisfaction on the issue. Am I clear on this?" This was a whole new level of secrecy, and the whole room went on mental edge. Every head and eye was now locked Captain Kelly and the room was now deathly quiet.

Having a Duel was not common, but it also was not unheard of when they left old Earth. It was a rule that was still on the books that the Settlement had adopted, but it had been rarely called on so far. The first time it happened on this plane, had been a half a year or so that they had been on this new planet. Captain Kelly had been called to a Duel, twice since they have been on this new planet. He had killed the first man in less than twelve seconds. That had been when, that man had appealed his conviction and sentence on charges of repeated and brutal child abuse. The second one had taken longer to complete the Duel, but after 30 minutes of viscous hand to hand combat. The woman had tapped out, and accepted a triple punishment for a drunk on duty conviction. This was something that would be very ugly, if push came to shove everyone knew that Kelly would call for a Duel. Captain Kelly was sitting with his back very straight in his chair, and he made eye contact with everyone in the room again. He stayed that way for several seconds until they all nodded that they understood what he was talking about. Then Kelly would nod to accept their agreement to his conditions.

"Okay now. I was asked if we could put a quarter of a container of light bulbs up for auction over the next few weeks. That will be an advancement of about four months from our announced plans on this product." He looked around the room again, a little faster than the last two times that he had done this. "What I was told is that Eva, Robin and the Group will buy as many as of those bulbs they can. They are going to use the new lights to increase the amount area in the caves that they have dedicated to growing food." He let that settle in for a few seconds before he continued.

Now that everyone was up to speed of the facts, which were going on behind the scenes. Captain Kelly went on with more items that were very sensitive. "If they would have waited until the scheduled auction of those lights, they would have been able to drive up the price. Because they would have been only one of the few groups, who could afford that high of a price for the growing lights. Amazon and her group did not want do that, to people who also need those lights for their homes. We also do not know who they bought the technique from, or how much they had to pay for it. I do know that the person is not with the core of that group, no matter what the rumor mill might be saying. I would bet that it will be an expense that will be hard to measure. What I was told, and this is came by a different information source. Is that they have also picked up some dozens of sugar beets seedling from the Lucky Find's hydroponics, not too long ago." He raised an eyebrow before he continued speaking. "Do I need to remind everyone what we could get? When we use the excess glycerin we are getting from the fish oil, when it is mixed with a good bit of extract from the sugar beets and a few other easy to come by ingredients." He did not need to, as he saw all of the eye brows shoot up higher on most of the foreheads in the room.

What he was talking about, was how you a made a very high grade explosives. Making new high grade explosives had been hard do to do, because of the lack of the right ingredients being available. Well the truth was them being available in any usable quantities, to make the processes worth wild for the effort, possible damage and danger production might cause. If Amazon and her group could get the sugar beets growing in the right numbers, and in a steady supply of those numbers? That would now be another game changer. All provided by Amazon and her group of friends that were out of the box thinkers. Both Bob and Kelly were keeping a close eye on those two for possible positions with in the leadership of the Settlement or other special jobs.

Sophia recovered first and cleared her throat. She wanted to make sure that everyone in the room understood what was being said. She knew but she was not that sure about the rest of the room understood, and the risk involved. "So we are not going to step in? What if your information turns out not to be true after all? Then what do we do?"

Kelly looked around the table quickly. "I would say no, let it play out. I do think we need to come up with a well thought out and very detailed plan, in case this type of thing comes up again. How about we vote on it? That way we have set a president for this type of event. And an agreed upon action as a counter to it on the law books. What do we do if my information does turn out to be wrong? Well then we will have to look at what our options are then. We have no idea what the future is going to bring, and how it can affect the situation." It took almost an hour to get everything completed and voted on. These new rules would be put into the records for later use, by the rest of the Settlement. Kelly was thinking that it was a bit of an overkill approach, but it made the others more comfortable. Even if he did not agree with the need, it was done deal.

Joe Kittinger was the last person scheduled to have input in today's meeting. Everyone needed a break after the stress of the meeting, about the possible collapse of their economy, and what that would cause. Max called for a ten minute break so that everyone could go to the bathroom, and or get something to drink before they started the meeting back up. This was good for Joe, because he had wanted, and needed time to get things ready for his big briefing. After he was done he stood by the briefing screen with anticipation. He was waiting for everyone to come back. He was mildly annoyed that only the three leaders came back to the metal walled room, which was being used for this meeting. He had put a lot of work into this this briefing, and his ego wanted the most amount of people to know it when he gave the briefing.

When Captain Kelly was taking his seat at the wooden table again, he nodded to Joe. He could tell that the man was a little let down, by having a smaller crowed. Than he had thought he would be briefing today. Joe had not idea that the break had been called so that Max, Bob, and Kelly could dismiss the rest of meeting attendees quietly. "Joe, I wanted this briefing to be given just to us. Afterwards, you can post the data at Warehouse One if you want. I just wanted our little group to have the first look at what you have come up with. It will help us make any modification to any long term plans we might have before he had to play twenty questions."

After the three men were now re-seated, and all of them were looking at the man standing at the head of the table Joe smiled back at them. There was not much he could come up with to say, to counter what everyone considered as the leader of the three elected leaders. "Okay. My briefing is on the results of the testing of the armor samples from both types of flying machines, as well as weapons we pulled from both type of cylon flying craft. First thing to talk about, is that they were indeed able to take the complete weapon systems from both the flying craft types. To include the loading and firing mechanizes, for the projectile weapons from both types of cylon craft. What we found out quickly about the two weapons mounts. Is that they are the same class of weapon, just in a different weapons mount looking or mounting type. We had expected that from our contacts with the Colonial Military, but none of them had seen these weapons first hand. That is before we got our hands on some examples to work with, and break them down. One of the main questions we had. Was if these heavier weapons they carried, could damage our machines and combat robots. The simple answer is yes. But they are not up to our tech and the damage output, as we expected from our interviews previously." Joe stopped talking and looked down at this notes before continuing. "The damage levels are very low for the mass of the weapons, but they can still hurt our people. We need to make sure our people do not underestimate them, when they are taking fire from them."

Joe stopped talking, and let the three leaders review the information on their portable computer screens. When Joe thought they had enough time to get the gist of the information, he started talking again. He had gotten a lot better at this sort of meeting over the last year. "My team had a couple of Colonials on it. They helped us identify some of the odder bits of the weapons, which we are not used to seeing. The weapon would be called a 30mm KEW weapon or Kinetic Energy Weapon. It is the same sized of weapon that the Colonial made Vipers and Raptors are supposed to carry. It makes a kind of since, and eases any supply issues if everyone shoots the same ammunition in certain high rate of fire weapons. It has been the standard Colonial fighter, anti-fighter, and anti-missiles weapon for around forty years, from what we have been told."

Again Joe stopped talking as he saw the leaders looking at slides with the weapons in an exploded view on their sixteen inch screens. Max gave a hand jester for Joe to continue his briefing, and he replied with a head nod. Max had the least amount of military knowledge, so if he was ready to continue, the other two men were also. "How they are able to get the heavy MDC damage output for the weapons is a twofold design issue. First design item, is the barrel of this KEW weapon. The breech of the weapon and its projectile we recovered, are 45mm in diameter when they are first loaded into the weapon." That was getting some strange looks as three heads came up from the screens to look at him. How could the projectile ammunition be bigger diameter when loaded, than the muzzle at the end of the weapon? Joe smiled back at them, as he saw the looks begin directed at him. He did want to tell them, that he had much the same look on his face. When he had found out that little bit of news, from the Colonials on his team. "If you go to slide ten you will see what I'm talking about. The Barrels have a tapper in them, so as the projectile is moving down the barrel. It is squeezed down from 45mm at the breach to 30mm just before the muzzle end. This has increased the efficiency of the propellant burn in the shell casings. We are guess increase by at least 50% over, the same length of barrel, which we would normally have used in a weapon of this class.

Joe was smiling at the wide eye looked the two men with military experience were giving him. Joe knew it was rare to stump both Captains. "The second design issue is the ammunition round itself." Joe pulled a round that had been bisected before the meeting and passed it to the three men across the table from him. "If you look at the round, you can see that it is made up of two different types of metals. The outer layer is very soft metal, or maybe a hard type of plastic. We don't know which one, yet. That is what makes the seal when the projectile goes down the barrel after the charge is fired. The core is a hard pointed metal alloy of some kind, that well do a good bit of damage when it hits. So far all of the ammunition we have found has been of this one type of round. We have not found an explosive round, like the big hand carried weapon can fire. That is about all we have been able to work out on those weapons. I have reduced the number of personnel working on the projectile weapons and there mounts starting tomorrow. I will still keep a few people on them, just in case something comes up. I think we have a good handle on them, and will not find anything that would be worth keeping the current number of people that I have put on the detail."

Joe activated the room's projector and an image was put on one wall near where he was standing. The image was of an odd pointed shaped object with fins at the back end with a smaller set closer to the nose. He activated a light pointer that had been in his hand from the beginning of the meeting. "The other weapons system we checked out, are the missiles. They were able to pull a dozen of these missiles from the landed ships and get them back to us. We also have been looking at sensors reports of their inflight capabilities, and warhead output provided by our people on the ground. All of the missiles we have seen, and have captured examples of. Seem to be just to have a high explosive warhead fixed on the thruster bodies. We are told by the Colonials that they have two other types of fighter carried missile. One is some kind of electronic attack or decoy systems, but our friends have not seen this one since what they call the first cylon war. We have also been told that they have nuclear warheads that are carried by both Raider and Heavy Raider. This sized of a weapon, is supposed to be able to carry a warhead in the five to ten kiloton range. We have not had a chance to examine them, first hand, so it is all hear say right now."

Joe pointed to the pointed nose of the projected image of the cylon made missile. "We now have a good idea of the tracking technique, and how there hardware and software works on their seeking systems. All of the missiles recovered had the same type seekers mounted on them. But we do not know for sure, if they have others or not. Our Colonial friends had no idea, and we know that the Colonial military only uses one type of seeker system on all of their non-capital sized missiles. We have already come up with a few good ideas on how to jam them, but it should be noted. That these missile seekers systems work on a different set of principles, than the seeker heads we are used to dealing with. The Test team feels that ours will be very hard for these cylons to counter. At least in the first and second engagements, that we use missiles against them and they live to pass along any telemetry. After that they might have enough information, to start developing counter measures for our missiles. That assumption will go out the window. If they capture any physical examples of our missiles, kind of like what we have done with theirs."

Joe moved his light pointer a little farther down the missile main body, to highlight a different area of the weapon on display. "This is the area of the warhead is right behind the seeking hardware and power supply and first set of maneuvering control surfaces. It is the main warhead. It is made up of a type of RDX/CL20 compound. That is as near as we can tell." Joe hit a button on the projector and a new image showed on the wall beside him. It was an exploded view of the warhead alone, so that each of the component parts was able to be viewed, and identified. "What is different in there warhead design verses ours is the core design of it. Is it has an outer wrapping of the main explosive charge, and it has an inner core of the warhead that is different than what we use." He pointed to the two different areas, but stopping moving as he pointed out the very inner core of the warhead. "We would call this an initiator charge. These seemed to be made up of the substance generally referred to as type of refined Tylium. Now we have found that same type of explosive charge in the ammunition in the ground base unit's weapons. There it is solid block of Tylium for the explosive charge. Tylium is a mineral that I, and anyone else that came to this planet with us. Has never heard of, our seen by a different name." Joe stopped looking at the three leaders and looked at his notes. He was looking for something and started to mumble just loud enough that it carried across the table. "What had one of the team called it?"

Joe stopped talking and reviewed his notes in his hand before he continued with his briefing. "There it is. They referred to it as being as unstable as an adolescent making home brewed nitroglycerin in an earthquake. That is a direct quote, by the way. I don't think that working with this stuff is a viable option for us at this time. I will put my job on the line, if I have to. That stuff is crazy unstable and I don't want to die working out how to make it, without a proven recipe. The Colonies of Kobal might have come up with ways to make working with this stuff safe. But right now, we have better results in yields, mass, and is safer just sticking with what we know how to work with."

Joe held up both of his hands, because he thought they might not like his idea he had just given to them. "I'm not saying that we should stop development in small scale, just as long as it is done safely. You never know what will come up, but right now this stuff is crazy unstable and dangerous as Frak." Joe stopped talking as a vision of some of the experiments they had run already had turned out ran quickly threw his mind. It only lasted a few heart beats, before he was speaking again. "The fuel for the missile has the same burn or spectral signature as the warhead. And we don't have any idea of how they were able to do something like that…. yet. The team thinks that we would be worth or while to see if we can get Mr. Tyrol back to our shops for this reason alone. If these cylon missiles are using a type of Tylium as a fuel for their impulse, this is one area." Joe stopped talking and looked right at Bob and Max, before he continued. "This is where they are ahead of us, equipment technology wise. Tyrol might be able to give us some insights into weapons capabilities, and maybe even some researcher and production pointers on this Tylium. He might even be able to define it better, than the people we have been working with so far."

Joe collected his note cards, and straightened them out. The last bit of information he did not need notes to give. "The team has concluded that we can make some improvements on our missiles systems, with what we found out so far from these captured cylon weapons. I have a small team that is working out how to use Colonial and cylon technology to improve at least some of our Missiles. We do not have the production capability to make new missiles, but if that changes in the future. I think we should have the plans drawn up, test as much as we can, and be ready to go into production. As of now our missiles have a better effective range, damage output, and better warhead selection or options. After a few contacts, there missile seekers will have a better hit ratio than ours will be able to achieve. But their conventional explosive warheads are a lot weaker than ours. The down side is that we cannot replace any that we use, and they can get resupplied. Even if they seem to be at the end, of a very long supply line, they still can at least plan on refilling there magazines. On the plus side, we can fire this type of cylon missile out of our any short ranged missile system that we have on hand. We can do this with only a few minutes spent, modify each missile we capture to fit our launchers. So if we can find a stockpile of them, we will be able to get some use out of them against any opponent. The targeting software is a simple patch, which we can upload in a few seconds onto the firing mounts. The software coding has already been worked out, and can be loaded into any combat unit when they come in for a maintenance cycle. It should not take more than a half an hour per machine, with our current manning levels. I approve the development of the software, as a just in case we can get access to Colonial military weapons. We were also told that the Colonial Warships, Vipers, and Raptor had been using this type of weapon for some time. We have been told, but even the person we talked to was not too sure how many they can make. But they can basically hand make new ones, if they can find the raw material and have the manufacturer ability free. That is a lot better than we can do, at this time."

"Why did they do that? Why would they make their ammunition dependent weapons so interchangeable?" This was asked the only no military person at the narrow table, his lack of experience was now showing on military matters. Even after these last few years of exposure. Max was still not that up to speed on military things, but he was a person who did not have to be told twice about something…. normally.

Kelly turned to face the other man, thankful that the deputies were not present to see this hole in the knowledge from one of the three key leaders. All most all of them were trained in at least one of the military arts, if not more. That did not mean that they were all knowing, when it came to all aspects of fighting. "The cylons were design to do the warfighting, and other nasty jobs for the Colonial's. Not too long ago in their history, so they started out using the same weapons as their current enemies. It takes a long time and lots of resources to change key weapon systems, that you also need a large number of to replacements what your currently working with. You also have the added advantage of being able to use capture supplies, with little or no work. That makes supplying your combat forces a lot easier and a lot cheaper, in both a long war and a short one. It has happened more than once back home, that I know of. I would bet, not all of their ordnance are that interchangeable, maybe in there big ship mounted stuff. I would also bet that as time went on, it would be less and less interchangeable like the 15mm weapons some of the Centurions have been sported with. So far we know that it does not have a Colonial military analog. But right now it still make some kind of since, for whoever in in charge of all of the cylons military power." Captain Kelly looked around the table again, and Joe was waiting not saying a word. Maybe it was because Joe did not want to interrupt his Captain.

Kelly was glad that Mr. Carr was not adding any additional or overloading information for Max to have to work through. "If this Admiral Adama still has those manufacturing ships with him. We could have them make expendable munitions for us. We know that they used those ships to restock all of their spent weapons stores, when they found this planet. So we know that they have done it before. It is something we need to think about, and put some rough ideas together." Kelly looked back at Joe, but Kelly had an almost dreamily like look in his eyes. "Sorry about that Joe, it was a target of opportunity." He smiled at the other man, so that he could get back to his briefing. Kelly had a list of dozens of ideas and counter plans. They were both in his head, and on a secure file in the safe built into his cabin. He was always a planer, even when he was a lot younger man.

Joe nodded and started back with where he had left off on his briefing. "Yes Sir. I would like to go back to the weapons, we most likely will see on the current battlefield. We have found something new out about the ammunition of both the hand carried cylon weapon you just mentioned, and the built-in machine guns that are used. We have found out that the Armor Piercing or AP core of the projectile is different than we first believed. Well it is made of the same type of metal, which is used as armor plate for the two types of small craft we have had access to so far."

Joe hit the button again on the projector, and the image changed on the screen. It was an extremely magnified imaged of something that was very hard to figure out what it might be, without more information being provided. Joe was ready to supply that additional information. "This is what the amour looks likes like close up, with our best magnification scopes. Its' a layered armor, and it's kind of like what we are used to working with. Only it is made up of different things. Also the layering is not anyway near as fine, as what we used to having access to. For what we can find out so far, and using the known technology limits as a guide. The smallest sized of projectile that they can make, is only going to be about 7mm in diameter. We have no idea how big a sheet of this stuff they can make in one run. But it should only be limited by the size of the equipment they have the room for, wherever they are making this stuff at the time. They also do have some way of attaching different slaps together. But so far we have no idea, if it is like what we have on hand or they use something completely different."

Joe flipped to a new image that showed a Centurion, a human form cylon, a Raider class craft, and a Heavy Raider class craft all on the same image. They were set up to be side by side to give a since of scale of each of the new enemy compared to each other. And a single human figure at one end of the image. "I don't want to have this taken as absolute, let's just call this a rule of thumb for now. We have come up with a defensive threat capability for each type of Cylons. Or more to the point, the ones we have encountered, and have lab tested so far. We are rating the current generation of Centurion, as being rated at eight MDC for the chest and between two to four for each of their limbs."

Joe moved his light pointer to the next figure on the projected image. "A human form cylon is a little faster, little smarter, and a little stronger than an Earth "normal" person. Other than that they are pretty much equal to most "normal" Earth born humans. So far they have only been seen in combat wearing relatively weak body armor. From all reports, it looks to be the same as what the Colonial Military has issued, to its main combat troopers. The same model that was just issued before this current war started. So they can only withstand a solid hit by something on the smaller side, like side arms and the like. Full sized weapons would blow threw them. Going from front to back and would even, be a threat to whoever was standing behind the first target with a large enough weapon. The hand carried weapons, that they have been seen to have been carried by our people and the Colonials. All looked to be standard issue Colonial Military or Fleet issue. We have no idea if they have different hand carried weapons, that they have not deployed ground side yet."

Joe moved to the image of the C shaped fighter with a cannon like weapon, under mounted on each of its sinister looking wings. "The Raider is designed for anti-fighter and light attack rolls in both atmosphere and in space. It has two cannons that are under-wing mounted and fire synced, but fixed firing forward only. It can carry up to six short ranged missiles in a central weapons bay mounted under what we think is the cockpit. The cockpit is behind the odd red lit area, and it holds the organic component that is the crafts control mechanism. We think that the main body of the craft is rated at about 10 MDC, and the wings are a lot lighter skinned than the main body. The craft is meant to be fast, and a first strike craft. It is not just for sitting around slugging it out, one on one with anything. We don't have any more information about the inner workings of this type of craft. Besides what we have been able to get from a few escaped Colonials with military experience."

Joe looked around to the three leaders, but they did not say anything. With a slight nod to Captain Kelly, Joe continued on with his briefing about the cylon craft called a Raider. "We have parts from about ten different craft of this type. That has come in from all of our different attacks so far to date. We have been told that they can fight in space, and have an ability to "jump" to different stars. But only at what they called a short ranged interstellar distance. What is that range? We have no idea. No one on my team knows what to look for in the engine area of the craft that can do this interstellar "jump". It would not help that much. Even if we had a whole one of these things to take apart, and test to our hearts content, we would still need technical support from Colonials. To really make any head way on figuring out how those systems work, or even if they were working in the first place." Joe could not hide his expression of distress at having to admit that bit of information to these men. "Now figuring out about their weapons and armor? We understand that. The rest of the stuff, we just don't have the back ground to understand them." Joe knows that this was not good news, but it also was not unexpected news. He moved on to the next image projected on the one wall to his right.

"This big ugly beast is called a Heavy Raider, by both Colonials and Cylons. We are told, that it is a little, but noticeable slower than a regular Raider class of ship. Its hull is also almost twice as thick as a normal style Raider. That means that it can take a lot more punishment, before it will come down. We think the mission type for this type of craft, is twofold. It can be used as troop lander like an APC, but it is also space capable. It is also used in heavy attacks, fire support to the smaller Raider ships, or the parent capital class ships. It has six cannons in two triples mounts, both of them are fixed firing forward. Each of those six projectile weapons, in those two fixed mounts are the same type of weapon. And the same that are mounted on the Raiders, but it has a lot deeper magazine to feed each mount with ammunition. But both mounts only cover the front arc of the ship with fire. If your attacking this thing from the back, top, bottom or the sides. Its dead meat in those areas, and it does not exactly turn on a dime either. Even with the bigger engines mounted on this thing, compared to the Raider class."

Joe stopped talking when Max looked up at him after the last comment. When they made eye contact, he waved for Joe to continue. "It also has only has the one missile bay, and it is in the lower center front of the craft next to the six cannons. This bay is larger than the Raiders have built into it, and this one can is carrying almost two dozen of the same type of missiles as the Raider class craft. We did find odd mountings inside the missile launch bay. It looks like the bay can modify to carry a smaller numbers of larger missiles. Maybe a Medium class weapon we have not seen before, but we think it can only carry ten of the larger missiles by the way the mounts looked to line up in the one example we have been able to look at. We do know from reports from the Colonials, heavier missiles are used for anti-shipping attacks. We are told that those larger missiles, come in also only two known different types of warheads. They are High Explosive and Nuclear, but we do not have a yield for those warheads on that sized of a missile yet. We also do not know if we can use these other larger missiles bodies or not. We have hunks from all of the larger Heavy Raiders that we have taken down so far. The guys on the ground found it easier to take big hunks out of the hulls of the grounded ships of this class, versus the crashed sites of the lighter Raiders. That is after they filled them full of holes, to make sure that they could not take off again." Joe gave a smile as he saw the three men in front of him look up as one, and smiled back at him for his offered light joke. "The message one of my forward deployed people said last night. Is that they were thinking about supplying more metal, for use back here at the Settlement and it would be coming from this class of ship. Just to let you know, about half of the total weight of the metal that came in from the attack on the fake transmitter site. That all came from the Heavy Raider class craft, which they were able to cut out quickly and as quickly carry off."

The other ship's captain, Bob Nichoson, rocked his head back at the mention of the additional refined metal. But he wanted to know about something that had been bothering him, since Joe has started his briefing. "Were you able to get all of what you needed for all of the testing you have been talking about? Do you need more? Do you need to move closer to the Main Support Camp to do better testing? What is the best way to compete all of the testing?"

Joe smiled a little bigger at the set of questions coming at him. It was always reassuring, to know that the leadership understood. How import it was to gain knowledge about any enemy first, before those test items were sent out for other uses and maybe less important uses. "We were able to get all of the materials we needed for testing without to many issues Sir. Those issues, I think have been resolved for now. But a blanket authorization letter from this body might be useful, down the road in case any issues come back up." Joe gave a twin shoulder shrug and kept talking. "After we had found out we could or did not need a sample anymore, or we were just done with a given sample. It was returned into the supply system here in Safe Port Bay. We have kept some items back, which we felt was still need for more testing or experimentation. But well over 80% or so of what we collected out of the supply network, has already been returned to the supply warehouse." He looked around the table at the faces, and they were looking back at him waiting to see what else he had to say. "That is all I have at this time. Thank you for your time gentlemen." Joe took a seat, and waited to see what was going to happen next.

Kelly looked around the table at his fellow leaders and read their faces like a well-used book. With a single look he knew what the next step was, at least the next step that had to deal with Joe. "I don't have anything right now. I think you can put all of the information from your report on the information network. I would like to think you, and your team. They did, and are doing a great work. I also was asked to pass along a think you, from the supply warehouse people about the return of those test items you just mentioned. That says something. When you have supply people, sending thank you notes, about your work. We will have to review this idea of a blanket letter in private. I'm not saying no, but we will have to review that request at a later date." A round of laughing swept Captain Kelly's side of the table. Every one of them had run-ins with the supply department at one time or another, before and after becoming the leaders of this little but growing settlement. No matter what planet you were on, supply people thought they owned every pen and bullet ever made.

Joe looked up and made eye contact with his Captain sitting across the table from him. "The notes, information, and the complete briefing are already on the Settlement network. I will password release them to the general access network, as soon as I get back to my office. And thank you for your compliment. The whole team knows how important it was to get as many of the items, back into the supply network as we could. I will pass along the thank you, to the rest of the team."

Kelly looked down at his portable computer, and back to the seated briefer. "Joe we know you have a lot on your plat, but we still have some topics we need to cover in this meeting." Kelly was trying to be nice, but the normal way to close one part of the meeting had been changed at the last minute. Now Kelly was left with only this awkward way to ask Joe to leave them, so that they could get some more work done.

Joe took the meaning, as it was time for him to leave the briefing room without any issues. He hated meetings, with the leadership of his people and he had a smile on the insides. "No problem gentlemen. I have about an hour before a test is to start out by the main gate, which I was hoping to be able to see in person. Thank you again for your time gentlemen." Joe rose from this chair, and swiftly exited the conference room. He felt like he just had a great day, and he had more things that he wanted to get done today. This had the makings of being a truly wonderful day. That is as long as nothing blew him up, before the dinner meal…again.

When the door closed behind Joe, Captain Kelly looked back down at his portable computer and flipped to the data he wanted now to talk about. "Okay. I did not want to address this to the larger group just yet." He tapped the screen of his computer. "I have an interesting report from the recycling center in the Supply System Department. They have hired a dozen more people to help with the increased workload that they have had of late. I am happy to report, that the salvaged cylon metal is already having an impacted on our standard of living as a group whole. A lot of it had already been process, and we have had made into massive influx of small metal fixtures like nails, screws, hinges. More importantly, the higher strength raw metals as also improved our defensive ability. We can still use more, a lot more, so we are not being flooded with an oversupply of those items at this time. No matter what some people might be hinting at, we need more metal." He tapped his computer again, and made a sour face. "I was asked if the Settlement would help fund a new melting furnace, to handle the salvaged metal back log that is just starting to grow. I kind of like the idea that more metal would be coming in, than the one furnace we have in operation can handle at this time. I don't think we should help fund this idea, at this time anyway. I think they could handle more output just by adding an additional working shift. I wanted to bring it up, in case we have to field some public questions later about it." This statement was rewarded with a pair of strange looks from the other two men at the table. The last four times this very subject had come up, to the gathered leadership. Captain Kelly had been the one who wanted to move ahead with this project. Now he did not want another smelter to be built, it was a strange shift in position.

Kelly saw the looks, and when Max tilted his head to one side, and then made and odd head bob motion. Kelly let out a sigh, and filled them in on his change of heart. "I take it from the look I'm getting from Max. You both would like to know the reasons, that I do not support his expenditure at this time. One is the additional power requirements, this project will need to be worth wild. I think they would be very high, and now we would have to conceal both items. Well I don't think it would not be an easy item to do. With an enemy intelligence that we already know has both air superiority and space superiority over us. Then add on top of that these cylon have an unknown scanning ability, which covers all the way from orbit down to ground level. The second item, is that with the information we are getting about the Colonial manufacturing ships and there capabilities. I think we would not be able to compete against them. Not with something like a slapped together late 20th century tech device, or something that is pre-golden age. Not against their higher technology built-in ability those ships give them."

Max looked at Bob with a level look, and nodded his head to what Kelly had been saying. With a slight lip movement, he added his own opinion on the subject. "I have to agree with you Captain Kelly. What we have now, is working well enough and now that we have a steady supply of refined metal. And it is already supplying what we need. And the repair shops are providing the limited higher end products that we have to have. I'm not saying it would not be better off, if we had more manufacturing capability. I just think waiting for a few more months, would not be that big of a deal." Max looked around the room. "Now that being said. I think we need to come up with a list of items that we can make or maybe more importantly. A list of what we can't make, to increase the production of high and medium quality armor plate. As we all have learned Max was right about keep that sub-par armor plate. I think it's something that if we can make extra of. Well the Colonials I have talked to, said that they would love to have it. You know since it looks to be some much better, than that they have had access to in years. Do any of you we know what else we could supply them with that we can replace of the tops of your heads?"

"I agree." came the reply for the captain of the Lucky Find. He was rocking in his chair left and right in little arcs lost deep in thought, and not aware of this movements. "Right now about the only thing we can supply them, that we are not limited in ourselves. You know what was loaded on our ships when we came here, is food and clean water." He stopped talking because he did not want to say what needed to be said. He had too many pet projects working, that would be effected by what he was about to say. He had to fight with himself for some long seconds, but in the end he decided that he was required to say what needed to be said. "I think we need to raise the priority for make the machines to support Max's idea about increasing the production of new armor plate." He drummed his fingers on the metal table top and made an unhappy face. "I remember seeing the plans for a small armor plant on the network a few months ago. I think it was going to be set up somewhere away from the main base Golden age Weapon Smiths had, back home." I was hoping that we could push that project down the line some and wait before, we had to do it. We can use this time to work out any bugs and develop a good bit surplus for our people to drive the cost down for them." Bob was still dumbing his fingers on the table top and a deeper frown forced down his lips. "I don't think that is an option anymore. I also agree with Kelly about not helping pay for part of a new smelter, just yet." It was a bitter pill for Bob to take, and it had tasted as bad as he thought it would. But it was out in the open now and there was not much he could do about it.

Kelly was a little stunned that it was two votes that agreed about not starting the new smelter, and he did not have to break a sweat to get them. He was also going to bring the armor plant idea up later, but now he did not have to. "I say that this idea of an increasing our armor production gets bumped to number two on the list of priority. That would put it right behind support to defensive applications, and even above food production for the time being. Do we have agreement? Raise your hands please." All three men raised their hands to agree to the new plan. Kelly made a note on his computer about the vote, about the why and the results. It would be auto sent, to a pre-planned list of people Kelly already had ready. That would happen at the exactly at the same time, as it was being posted on the side of Warehouse One. For all of the rest of the still growing Settlement to have access to. A note would also be posted, that they had reviewed a request for support of building a smelter. And they had decided not to support, that idea at this time. That would not stop the smelter from being built, only that the leadership was not going to help with supply the funds. If they could raise the funds on their own then they could build it any way.

After making that note, Kelly went to the next item on his list of subjects. "Now for another bit of supply business, that was brought up to me. I have been sent an official request, for general support. It would seem that another group of young lions wants to go on another Megalodon hunt. They have that 80 foot kind of sloop rigged wooden vessel. They have just finished building, and doing some test runs on the beast." Kelly looked around the table, to read the faces. That large wooden vessel had been an issue, when it was it first brought up to them. After a few days the trios decided not to support, or help fund it being built. That had been during the first year on planet, and it was judged to be a waste of effort by most people. That had not stopped the people who had come up with the idea in the first place. Two of the individuals had been water warlocks or water witches. That is before coming to a planet that magic was so very quiet on. They had used their knowledge of sailing ship design, and now after almost three years of very hard but stop and go work. The vessel was ready for its first mission. Kelly had put some of his own money it the project, but only a little bit. It was more as charity, than in any hope of get any repayment for his investment. He thought the idea was more of a safe way for some magic uses to find an outlet, after the loss of their primary way of life. Deep down, he never thought that they might get something launched that would acutely float. Much less them making something that would be productive to the Settlement in any measurable way.

It had not been an easy job, and they had looked like they were going to give up more than once over the years that it took to not only built the vessel, but all the tools to build the ship. But somehow they would come together again, and they would fix. Whatever had slowed them down, or had stopped the work in the first place. The design had changed more times than the men around the table to could think of, or would have wanted to know about. In fact there was a betting pool going on in Warehouse One. If the ship was ever done, if would be even able to float. One of the hardest design changes had been when they found out, and it was not early on in the project. That there was no way to come up with something to make all of the sail cloth, that a vessel of that size. It would need a huge amount of that stuff to move at anything like a useful speed. That was why now it was barely sooner rigger, even now in a hodgepodge of different looking sails. That was still an issue, but they were working with others to test out any local fiber making planet. They would even help pay for some of the development of the sail making material, and do the testing on their ship.

Somehow the group of ex magic wielders, and friends were able to come up with the funds, to buy a poor souls EBA suit. That had been after he had removed himself from this word, because he had fallen into a bought of deep depression. They had been able to modify the suit to be the primary power supply for the vessel. The rest of the suit had been not well maintained, and the rest of the suit had been sold off as spare parts to keep other suits in operation. The suit's power supply system would spin the copper screw, that was just at eight foot wide with a three bladed propeller or prop. The ship was being built in a large sea side cave that opened to the ocean, and that cave had a tunnel access to the bay side of the ridge-line. One of the easier projects they had done was converting the foot trail, to a road to supply their pet project. The vessel they had finally launched was not going to be fast. But it was invisible to radar, and it had passed a limited DRADIS test from the device that Chief Tyrol had left them. The thing was invisible to both systems, so it had some utility, if it was used the right way. At least that was what Kelly was now thinking about the wooden hulled ship. But what could it best be used for? That was the million credit question.

The ship's elected Captain would not be a member of the Triumvirate, but they would be able to sail were ever they wanted to go. Just like the two ship's captains that sat around this table had been able to do, if they wanted to exercise that option. The owners did not have to let the leadership of the settlement know that they wanted to go on a hunt. It was an expected of them to let them know, but only because if something went wrong. It would be Triumvirate leading the rescue of them, no matter where they might be. The group around this table could have veto this first mission of the wooden boat. In the end they all decided that it would set a bad precedent set for the future. The mission Veto would only be used if, it was a real life or death situation. This had been already decided weeks before the craft had left slips for the not so loving touch of the open sea. Plus there was that age old rule for a commander. "That you should never give an order, which you knew, would not be obeyed in the first place."

Kelly waited for a time as he watched his fellow leaders reading the notes on their computers. He wanted to give the other two a bit of quiet time, to see if they wanted to object to the request that had been sent to him. When the other two men looked up from there computer, Kelly was ready. "I think we should ask them to limited there first hunt, to only two of those beasts. Before they are suggested return back to the dock for offloading. We will let them know that we are not going to put out an alert about the suggested limited catch, or even that they are going out to doing any hunting on their next test run. I think that it will not affect the speculation on price of the meat when/if. They come back with two of those 100 ton animals ready to hit the market. I would also suggest that we put in an order for more of the local plastic made long term food storage bags. That much meat hitting the market at one time will drive the price down, a least some. If we take what is left, and store it the right way for a rainy day. I think we can do it on the cheap side, and it might get even cheaper down the road. At least at the short run, I think the prices will drop a good bit. At least that is what I'm hoping it will do when they start pulling in more, and maybe larger meat animals out of the oceans."

Kelly sat back in his office chair and rocked back and forth with a sly smile on his face, as he was looking at the other faces in the room. "No I'm not that worried about the price of meat, but it will help us with supply the Colonials. The 10% of our total population that we have called up to fight, and feeding all of the people that we have supporting that 10% is going to cost. That will also take a lot of what we have in storage or can buy on the open market. I'm also don't want those young Lions to get to over confidant to quickly, and then ending up over doing something and sinking because of it. I also think that after their second mission that they successfully complete. That we offer them a job, which we are willing to pay for." The idea had just hit Kelly, and when all of the eyes turned to him. He was not sure his idea was great or bat fraking crazy as the Colonials would say. "I think that they should be able to load one of the smaller submarines on their ship as deck cargo. I would say give them a mission to scout, and detail survey up and down the coast. I say that we will help cover part of the cost of the mission up to say half of the total expenses. The sweater in the deal is that we would also get a cut of any profits, of whatever is turned up on this scouting mission."

Before Kelly could say anymore a voice cut him off from his chain of thought and speaking. "Captain Kelly, I think that the last part is a bit extreme. I also think that it is way too reliant, on to many things. All of those things have to break exactly right, to work out. I have no issue about the catch and test limits on this new crew and ship. But I say we should wait a little longer. Before we plan to far ahead, and charter a high risk mission like you just proposed. I say let's relook at any missions for them, after they have a few more successful mission under their belt." That had come from the other ship's captain, sitting at the table rubbing his day old beard growth on his chin.

As the three people went about their meeting in the metal hull of a converted warship, the rest of the Settlement went about their normal day to day business. All as the sun made its way closer to the sky line, and in the evening cold air. Some jobs were done, and other new jobs were just getting started. In other words, it was just another day on this planet hidden in a nebula.

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Hope you all are like this. This update has put me at just over 500 pages posted.


	22. Chapter 22 Chp 13 a freind in need

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

I'm still looking for a Beta reader and help, no one has come forward yet. Sorry guys, but I'm still trying.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 13 A friend in Need**

 **New Caprica, 715 Days after the Fall of the Colonies,**

 **3 years 4 month AT**

The trees were shaking, and dead as well as the still living leafs were falling through the overhead canopies like a brown and green organic drifting rain. When seen from above in the grey and black cloud covered sky. You still would not have known something major and very dangerous was going on, below those sun catching tops of the massive forest giants. You would not have even know that that something was going on below you. But below those green tree tops that was supply that rain falling of leaves, was being caused by Robin "Amazon" Fero and Eva Kraus passing blow them. The pair of warriors were tearing through the jungle overgrowth, in there pair of oddly painted Delilah armor suits at almost 100mph. They were both moving as fast as they could throw the massive trees towering over them, and the tangled undergrowth and rotting limbs beneath their fast moving metal covered feet.

What was causing the pair to act so rashly? The pair of fighters was responding to a mayday, which had come over the radio built into each of the armored walking war-machines. One of the people in their working or patrol area was in trouble, of the cylon kind. And at the time of the last report, he did not know if would survive it. This had fallen under a ruled called simply GO 2, and the pair were responding to it as fast as they could. In fact, they were traveling a lot faster than they should have been being this close to the Refugee camp.

General Order 2 simply said, that they were not to allow any Earth Tech to fall into the hands of the cylons. When John Keller's voice had come over the radio waves. He was already out of breath, and was only able to get out the one of the preset code words out of his mouth. That one word as only five letters long and it was "Omega". The one word was all he could get out, before he was to out of breath to speak again. He was running and fighting for his life and having air to use to make words was not high on his list of needs right at the moment. That one word had made it back to the main support base at the speed of light carried by the Radio waves. That was where Major Weston had called out for everyone in the local area to close in on Keller's last known location. After a few minutes Major Weston also started to designate some people to cover Keller's pre-planned fall back areas that were on file in the command tent's computers.

Robin and Eva were the closest ones to John estimated current location, when the message had first came in. They had been one of the few that were close enough, that they could have received the transmission straight from John himself. John had worked with the two female scouts for some time. Both in the field, and in many of the pair numerous pet projects that they had going on back in the Settlement. John Keller had been a combat soldier for almost ten years, both in medium sized independent units or small cities militias. That had been before deciding one day, that he wanted a new life for himself. He had started his new life, by signing on for a trip as far from his current home as he could go and still have a good chance to get there alive. So off to the East Coast of the Old United States he went, looking forward to a fresh start in a new area. It was just bad luck that the trip to start his new life, would turn out to be an ill-fated convoy run that had a tracked a massive attack by slavers. Then again, he had wanted to start a new life. And being on a new planet, without everything trying to kill you was a new experience for him.

After coming to the new world, he helped out with whatever need to be done. As long as he did not have to fight. He did not want to put his combat equipment back on, ever again. When things had settled down he was able to trade some of those war making items, that he had packed down on his move to the east coast. He used those funds to set up his own little workshop, where he could do small repair work. He had been out in the way back of beyond so often that he had picked up a few additional useful skills along the way, just like most other combat veterans. Those average repair skills did not pay that well, but he liked the work. Besides whenever he need to use his six foot six inch height, and 250 pound mass he did. Only this time he would not do it in anger. He was now a man at peace…more or less.

John did not even join up right away, when the new comers made themselves known to the people living around Safe Port Bay. He did not take part in any of the scouting missions, or the early combat missions for that matter. He would spend his extra time working on the Settlements defenses to show support, and help make ends meet to pay the bills. His little shop, soon had an increase in work as more and more military equipment needed to have the battle damage repaired. John's little shop was soon up to having him working a solid six hours a day doing those kinds of repairs. John was happy that with the work, and was thinking that this war would not need his guns to support.

That was until all of those images came back of those metal cylons shooting unarmed people in the back. The images had been "old" news from the first day of the cylons return to haunt the Colonials. John had even heard about them, but with his work load he had never bothered to believe them or look them up on the information network. It was one night after splurging and buying some fried chicken, this all changed. He was enjoying the meal and talking with some of his friends when that subject had come up. They had been shocked that he did not know what they were so upset about. One of them pulled up the images in question. Those graphic images of the first day of the cylon landing had made John pull out, and tuned up his old Bushman Trooper armor. When he was satisfied that it was good to go after so long on not being used. He moved out to the fight for those, who could not defend themselves from these new evil attackers.

John had developed a niche for himself on these missions away from the Main Support Base. He quickly became the point man to make fist contact with any Colonials. At that least those that were living outside the compound, or had just escaped successfully from under the cylons thumb all on their own. He would track down those groups of Colonials, carrying extra food and water as well as his weapons. When John found them, and after he thought it was safe enough to try. He would make contact with them using note flash cards, and pigeon Caprican that he was quickly picking up. After making contact with those in need. He would lead them to the nearest large combat group that could best help them. Sometimes this was a many days long hike back, to a Settlement setup support base or other forward camp. That was the way he had been working for some time now. He liked working alone, but after see the number of cylons on planet. He always tried to make sure that some, and preferably a friend was at least closeish to him.

For John, today had started off with a report being sent back to Major Weston's HQ right at first light. John reported that he had found some tracks heading off in a certain direction going deeper into the forest. He gave the brake down of estimated numbers and what was the direction they were handing, and that he was working on them. It was not long after this first reporting in the early morning hours. That he had made contact with a group of escapees. It was not long after that, when things started to go very wrong for everyone involved in that part of the forest.

John had found human tracks in the mud not long after sunup that he could tell were only a day or so old. The shoe prints were of various sizes and styles, so John had moved as fast as he safely could to find them before any cylon patrol might. He also did not want to surprise the group of shell shocked humans. They tended to have a nasty habit of shooting first. Especially when they were startled, and surprised by a stranger of any kind. After less than an hour of John running and tracking, he was able to find them. After the first ten minutes of tracking he was very concerned. This group was not moving fast, and they were leave a massive trail behind them. John was moving at almost a jogging speed and still had no problem fallowing the marks they had left in the local environment.

He was able to make contact with the six Colonials of various ages. They ranged in age from pre-teen to one that was 40ish. None of them looked like the images of human form cylons that John had recently reviewed. He had made a habit of reviewing those forty different images every night before going to sleep. That none of those faces were here, was a good sign in John's book. And after passing out some food, but mostly water to the six haggard looking Colonials. He was able to get them to trust him enough that they would not be inclined to assault him, by using the flash cards to cover many of the most recurring issues. It would seem that they had been counting on making contact with someone like him as the key to their safety. That is after they had been able to get out of the Refugee camp without being noticed.

The now group of seven had just started moving again, and making good time towards a meeting point that he knew about. He had given them a few pointers on what not to do, like stopping the teenager from braking limbs along the way because he was board. It was after they had gotten into the grove of moving fast but somewhat cleanly threw the forest, that the peace was broken. That had been when they were over flown by a pair of slow, and low flying cylon Raiders. That was not good, and John had hoped that his gut feeling was wrong for…once. After all there was a first time for everything, the last time he had ignored his stomach had been when he had bought that ticket for a cabin on the Lucky Find. Today, he was not counting on it, however. His gut had not been wrong more than a handful of times in his whole adult life. With a single word and waving his hands in the air, he got the group of Colonials attention.

The two dog smart ships quickly made a sharp right hand turn, and aimed for another pass over the area that had attacked their attention. This time they did not just do a slow over fly of the group humans that their sensors had told were hiding under the treetops. Both ships fired there pairs of under-wing mounted cannons, and strafed the group of humans on the ground in a long running burst of fire and death. John did not have much electronic support built into this suit of Northern Gun made armor. He was caught unaware of the level of danger he was in. That is right up until the ground started to explode around him, and his charges. The four long lines of exploding dirt and vegetation, was quickly followed by the scream of the over flying cylon attack craft now moving at several hundred miles an hour.

Thanks to John and his first warning, the group of seven had been able to spread out so that they were not one big rose to be plucked. That did not mean that they all were not at risk, but that it would be harder to be taken out in one shot. Two of the spread out group had been killed outright, but all of the other unarmored humans were only hurt in some way or another by the four long lines of death the cylons had just put down. Using the free time after the attack. John was able to collect everyone together again.

The pair of cylon fighters were returning to the scene again, for a third over flight of this now blood soaked bit of forest. This time the pair of slow flying fighters were met with weapons fire from a Heavy Ion Rifle. There defenseless prey had somehow grown not only teeth but a very powerful stinger. That heavy ion rifle was the weapon that John had been carrying, since he had been issued the weapon before being sent out to join Major Weston at the main support base. It was a replacement for his ammunition dependent Rail gun, which had come with him to this new world. That heavy and reliable weapon was left behind in the cabin he shared with a young couple. John had been off the range a long time, but he quickly made up for that, when he put this armor back on. He was soon rated as a "good" shot after a few days on the makeshift range Weston had set up. His target was not moving from side to side in any measurable way, and coming at him head. It was not even doing the yo-yos in height as it closed on John's position. It seemed to be uncaring if the humans below might had any weapons or not. Those were mistakes of the first order, and John was going to make them pay for it.

John had his weapon up and tracking one of the pair of attackers. He was sighting down the long weapon, he raised it a little to adjust the sight picture. When he was satisfied with his adjustment, he put a burst of ion bolts into the path of his target. He was able to score enough hits on the left wing of the Raider that he was targeting, with is new rifle. That he was able bring down the trailing Raider of the pair of attackers with his first burst of fire. But not before both of the C shaped craft could fire off another volley of weapons fire into his general area. This time it was a pair of short ranged high explosive missile flew into the general area of the unarmored humans that were on the ground. When the first fighter started to burn into the ground, the second fighter continued on its ground attack on the targeted bit of woods. John shifted his aim point some to the right, and put the rest of energy s stored in his weapons long E-clip into ion blast. It was a duel between the one armed figure now just visible under the trees, and the high tech flying killing machine. Smoke trails from cylon missile crossed the both ionized trails left by the rising ion bolts from the Earth made weapon.

The few light hits first struck the right wing and then marched over to the main body of the Raider were shrugged off, and it continued on its flight path. John had not been able to focus all of the damage to the nose of his first target, and was not able to bring it down. The Ion hits did stop the second fighter from being able to use its underwing mounted cannons to reap additional carnage on the humans below. Before it could launch a second volley of missiles, the odd power surge started burring out the craft's supporting systems. That is before it to, burn into the mud some distance away from the carnage it had.

John and crew were a little luckier on this run, and no one was hurt worse. Other than those that had been, before that particular attack run. Even with the additional firepower dropped on their heads, they had been very lucky mostly thinks to John's warning to scatter. John tracked the attacking and now smoking fighter, after it over flew him and waited for the sound of a crash. He did not have to wait long to hear the sound of the falling high tech weapon coming down into the huge trees not too far from his current location. After the sounds of the crashing Raider reached his ears, John pointed in one direction and said "run!" in passable Caprican. While they were running John made sure to put a fresh Long E-Clip into the butt of his energy weapon. He had a feeling that he was going to need it sooner rather than later. John had no idea how soon he was going to need that reloaded freshly charged E-Clip and more of them.

The lone Raider made a third attack run sometime after John had taken care of his buddies. Why was a lone Raider flying around, not even the cylons knew why. Maybe it was a "Scar" type of Raider, which did not "like" working with what it thought as dumber Raiders. Now that John was aware of the air threat he was keeping an eye on future attacks from above. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was John's skills from all of those years being a trigger puller. But he saw the attacking cylon, as it started his attack run this time. He was ready for it when it crossed into range of the weapon in his hands. John started firing as soon as he ordered the group of wounded Colonials had start to run in the direction he had told them to run in. John was drawing the attacking craft to his location, to hopefully getting the unarmored people out of the line of fire of the quickly closing craft. It also was like drawing a moth to a flame, granted it was a blowtorch of a flame. The slightly smarter than a monkey, machine had no idea what was shooting at it, but it knew two things. That was enough for it, right now. One was that it was dangerous, because whatever was in the local area, had shot down its two wing man. The other thing it knew. Was that it was not getting any sensor readings, which matched Colonial or cylon tech down below.

That meant that this situation matched a new set of orders, which had been installed into its programming very recently. It was to report first no matter what, and then it was to destroy it if possible one of the unknowns that called this planet home. It was a bad decision on the third Raiders part to attack again. That was because after it fired its last pair of missiles into the area below, it too was reduced to a burning pile of wreckage of the wet forest floor. Just like the other two of its cylon bothers had been blasted out of the air. All three Raiders were not able to download into new bodies on the any of the basestars overhead. They had been given the final death. And unlike some of their kind, these three had not wanted that particular gift.

The message the last Raider had sent did have the effect it had wanted. That was to alert all of the cylons, which were even remotely close to John's location of his presence. All they need was a location, and they started moving to the latest reported attack location. John knew this, and tried to push his wounded charges faster in the direction that he hoped help would be in. John was the sheep dog to a group of hurt sheep, and there were wolves in the nearby woods. These wolves were both fast and relentless.

John caught the sound of movement coming towards him over his external pickups, and stopped moving. Soon he was a short, non-moving tree among all of the other forest giants. Now that he was not moving he could focus in on the sound that he systems had picked up. He waved to one set of eyes that turned to him, as he raised his weapon slowly to his shoulder. John waited for it to get a semi-clear shot, and put the running Centurion down. He did it with a single well aimed shot to its broad metal chest closing in on John's spot in near a tan barked tree. John let his ears work, and for now they could not hear anymore movement at least not nearby. John's skills told him that the area for at least 500 feet was clear, of any moving threats. John pulled the weapon off of his armored shoulder and signaled for everyone to move out again.

He now was staying at the rear of the slow moving group, to provide at least some cover from any attack that he knew would be coming. He had not been doing that for long, when he found out that something like that would not keep the Colonials out of the line of the Cylon fire. That had been when a wave of ten Centurions had come out of the wood line. They fired into the spread out group of humans, killing the two smallest of the Colonials, in the very first volley of machine-gun fire. One by one the other wounded humans had fallen to the devastating cylon flanking attack as more and more machine-gun rounds were fired into the small group of fleeing humans.

John had no idea that he was screaming, as he emptied the E-clip into the attaching metal wave. He was in single shot mode and he fired, and fired until he had stop the attack. He had seen many of the humans that he had been trying to protect fall. The remaining two Colonials that were alive, were just holding each other, and softly crying, they knew that they were about to die. The next wave of attacking enemy force showed up, running out of the thick forest a few seconds after they had held each other. The Centurions blindly fired at the sound near the tree, killing them also, as they cried and held each other over the loss of their adopted child, and all of their friends. John was in the middle of changing out his spent E-clip with a fresh one and froze in mid-movement. All he could do was watch as the people he had tried help, only die right in front of him. The next few seconds were a blur, and John would never remember exactly what happened next. All he know was that he was finally able to reload his rifle, and fight off that wave of Centurions.

John was now fighting for his own life, as he was withdrawing from the now died Colonials, that he had been trying to help. He knew each time he fired, that it was going to draw more enemy and more enemy combat units to his location. And he did not care as he fired shot after shot taking down Centurions, with each ION blast or burst that left his weapon. He was moving as fast threw the forest as he could, but deep down he knew. That he would not be able to extract himself from this nasty bit of an issue. He did know, or he thought. That he was raking up a frak ton of a body count as he fled deeper into the forest, drawing every cylon with in miles to him. The only thing John was thinking about was, that the more cylons he drew towards him, the more that he would be able to kill.

After about half an hour of a running gun battle with the always present cylon ground forces. John made the one call, which you really did not want to have to make in your life. John had made the radio call in, but while he was distracted mid-sentence. He was hit by weapons fire from two different Centurions. They had been carrying those big external guns, and they had hit him at the same time with their fire. A double row of impacts killed his radio mounted on his armored helmet, damaged his rifle that was still in his hands, and the heavy impacts had dazed the operator of the armor. In a split second John lost his communication, and his main weapon, and as well as having his bell rung…big time. About the only thing that had worked out for John, was that he was not knocked off his feet. All of that had been done by the double row of impacts making an X pattern on the front of his Bushman Trooper body. Not being knocked down was a mix of John's skill and the quality of his body protection.

John did not just drop the damaged energy weapon, even in his half dazed condition caused by two heavy impacts to his armored covered head. He had been well trained, not to do something like that. Even before he joined the military back on the planet he had been born on. You did not just drop something in the middle of a battle or otherwise. Even if or after it had simply taken some damage, the frames of most combat weapons were tougher than you might think. That was just one reason that things like that Rifts Earth were just not done, and those skills and training carried over nicely to this new planet. You just never knew when something might be useful or even repaired. That is when you had time after the fighting had stopped, and the bodies started to cool. With a smooth and well-practiced movement, John put the damaged weapon in to its carrying sheath on the back of his armor. It just happened that while he was doing that motion. This made it look like he just ducking low and going behind a thick tree to put it between him and the attacking cylons. This would buy him a little bit of time that he desperately needed. The attackers might not know that he had just lost his primary weapon.

With the loss of the energy rifle John was now in even deeper trouble than before, but he was not unarmed with the loss of the Ion rifle like weapon. It was just that now, he would have to be a lot closer to the issue than his rifle had let him handle the cylons. A side mounted pocket on the rifle sheath held another weapon, a very thin weapon. With tree blocking the view, he pulled out the oddly shaped handle with its attached thin metal band with a very evil smile on his face. The weapon was only about four and a half feet long, and it truth it was not that impressive of a weapon to look at. John used his thumb and mashed a switch, hard. As soon as he raised that thumb off the button, the odd weapon made an equally odd sound. That was both a soft sound, but at the same time very high pitched sound as the noise made its way around John. When a Tin Head came running around a tree that his prey had dropped behind. John stepped out to meet the Centurion in an up close and in personnel style of combat.

The Centurion did not know what to do at first at the change in the flow of events. When the metal human it had been chasing and watching as it took down Centurion, after brother Centurion for the last fifteen minter at least. His prey had stepped around the tree in front of it, holding a thin four foot long metal sword in a one handed grip. This event was beyond the Centurion's combat, and life experience. Every other time this Centurion had come upon an enemy, that being a human. The humans had always either ran away or fired at him while running away. End state was that all humans always ran away from attacking Centurions. They did not seek to close with them in hand to hand combat with a thin metal sword. The Centurion acting according to long ago written and forgotten computer code lines buried deep in the Centurion's core program. The Centurion dropped his heavy weapon onto the wet ground at his still moving feet. Then it raised his sharp claws that made up the fingers of each hand. Now it could rend the being in front of it, in too wet chunks of meat and organs. Just like it had done on hundreds of times before, on three different planets.

The running Centurion had to stop its forward movement when the crazy human shaped metal thing stepped in even closer to the Cylon. The Centurion did not know what to do, when one metal covered human like arm slid its human like hand under the Cylons metal chin. Then with a steady pressure the cylon's head was pushed back as far as it could go on its gimbals. This was not possible according to all its programing. Now the metal machine could almost thinking, it was starting to have a mental issues. Whatever was attacking it was stronger than any human in its on board records. When it brought the Centurion claws down across in the only self-defensive move it knew how to make, in the odd shaped head that had been designed to look sinister to human eyes. Those long metal fingers only drew some sparks from the strike of metal on metal. As the white hot sparks flew into the air from the full powered strike of the cylons blades the Centurion's central core almost shut down in confusion. Those flying white hot sparks were the only sign of damage on its attacker. Then John used his offhand, the one holding the humming thin metal sward, to make a smooth backwards motion. A flash of sparks came off the Centurion. As the thin sword cut the metal machine in half, without any more effort than as if John had been cutting up apple for lunch.

John dropped the top half of the metal monster that his right hand that was still holding in the air like ugly metal doll. Now that its legs and the bottom part of its torso were separated from its top half, and not proving there designed support anymore. A second Centurion came around the tree, just as the top part of the hulk hit the mud with a soft splat after John had relaxed his grip. John spun in place as quick as a cat, using skills from years of almost forgotten training from a faraway planet. He caught the descending cylon blades on his Vibro sword hard metal guard stopping the attack, just like it was designed to do. When the Centurion blades made contact with the Earth tech device. They fell to the ground, cleanly separated from the larger machine just from the pressure of the down cut the Centurion had used. The metal war-machine responded quickly, as only a cylon could. It quickly jammed its right hand blades into John's center chest as hard as it could. All that impact energy caused the blades to bent back on to themselves, but the blades were flexible and did not break on impact. The force of the blow turned the hard but flexible alloy until it almost was a C shaped. It was like they were made of clay, or it was a scene in some comedy entertainment show.

The Centurion's head looked down to see why its attack had not worked, with its one red glowing eye. This delay gave the Centurion just enough time, now that it was looking in the right direction. It could see the odd humming sword coming up towards the seven foot tall metal cylon at an inhuman speed. The football shaped was cut in a line running along the thick back neck ring and the top of the chest, with super clean cut. It then flew backwards off the top of the metal machine going slowly end over end, until the energy ran out and the red eye went died. The machine jointed it compatriot in the mud, at John's feet. Before the football shaped head hit the ground about five feet behind the body that had carried, until just a second before. This machine also would not be able to download into a new hull, carried by the Basestar in system.

With the two nearest Centurions down and out of the action of trying to kill him, John used the time to try to run as far as he could for the two hulks in the mud. It did not work nearly as well, as he had hoped that it would. He would have to stop, and slice up a Centurion or two in a close ambush about every fifteen and twenty steps. Then he would have to turn and run some more. That was John's life, as he ran deeper and ever deeper into the forest.

That is until he ran into more cylons in damp forest, and he would have to wade into their arm mounted weapons fire letting his body armor take the damage. That way he could get up close, and personnel with this group of cylons. If anyone would have been tracking the sites of conflict, they might have noticed something. John had adjusted his course he had been moving in after each contact. He would not be leading the cylons towards the spot that he had wanted to take the Colonials to. He was pretty sure that was that the cylons were thinking, he was leading them to others of his kind. He was, in fact, leading them away from any other group of Colonials he knew of and all of the areas that he knew his people were working. And he was doing it as fast, as his weakening legs would take him.

After what seemed like an hour, John was running out of power in this Vibro-sword, and his legs at about the same rate of depletion. His brain was also short of oxygen to power it effectively, so when he went around just another large tree in a continent that was full of them. He was thinking that maybe he could take a few seconds to catch his breath, before he can continue on little marry run. This thought along with the lack of O2 in his brain might have distracted him just a little bit. He did not see the charging Centurion, until it hit him low in the body near where his hips were. It was would have been a perfect American rules football tackle. The two metal beings were now down on the ground in a tangle of failing, and clanking metal clad extremities. The sound of the massive impact of metal on metal propagated threw the local forest. And it was quickly fallowed, with the somewhat quitter sound of colliding metal limbs against each other.

John was not hurt that badly by the tackling of the running cylon, but it did three things almost all at once to John. First it put him on the ground with a mass on top of him, and also the Centurion was restricting his movement in a combat situation. It also gave him a huge bruised spot on his chest, under his body armor. That was the second thing. It also looked like he might have cracked a few ribs. If he lived a little longer today that was going to trouble. Having a few cracked ribs made it the devil's own time, trying to breath. Much less try to breath, run in the deep woods, and being in combat against anyone trying to kill you. That is much less, having to do all three things at the same time with those cracked ribs. The last major immediately thing that the collusion had caused, was that it had knocked the Vibro sword out of John's hand. He was lucky that when his finger left the switch of the oddly sounding sword. That it shut off the energy that mad the device so dangerous, as it flew thru the air and away from the pair of combatants. John had no idea where the weapon went, after it had left his hands. All he could see was the one red eye of the cylon, which was latterly in his face. So let's just put it down, as he had more important things to think about right about then. He could worry about where his sword had landed later.

While John was on the ground being delayed, by being tangled up with a Centurion, that had been moving about 22 miles per hour. That is before it had impacted with him and transferred all of that momentum to John's armor. A second group made up of nine Centurions, was able to finally catch up to him. Seeing that there target was on the ground, and looked to be already partially immobilized by a member of the cylons race. A second group of program lines kicked in, on the nine newly arriving Centurions. They went from being in full kill mode, to now being in a more sedate capture mode. Well as sedate as a squad of Centurions could be. The amazing thing was that this change had happened, in faster than a blink of an eye. They moved all most, as if the Centurions were of one body. They started to jump on the prostrate man, to add there mass to pin down this strange and still moving target. They would now work together to subdue the target, hopefully without killing it. Doing a lot of damage was okay, but they were not to kill it or the human form cylons would be very upset with them. The Centurions had the time, and mass to do the job. Or so there Centurion's built in programing said it did. That might had even been true, up to a point.

A hard left handed strike on John's head caused his helmeted head to turn. Now John saw the metal wave coming for him as he fought to get the pinning mass of the first attacker off of him. He had a very good idea what was about to happen, even if he did not know the planned out details. "Well this is going to be a suckey way to die." John did not know, that he had said this aloud. But it was recorded on his suits system, as they were designed to do by some unknown designer in Michigan. The idea was that it could be played back to all who wanted to hear it, like say a commander. Weather John would have wanted to let them hear it are not, was beside the point. There is one nice thing about being embarrassed. That is the living to be embarrasses after the core events were over that would have cause the distress in many a bar, later. There is no such thing as dying of embarrassment, only the surprise of living after that event.

John was trying to reach for his belt mounted Vibro dagger, but no matter what he did could not get it. Then in a blink of an eye, his other arm was pinned by the avalanche of metal pinning his once free arm to his chest joining its bother pinned in almost in the same location. More and more of the multi 100's pound machines, fell on top of him, and he felt each of the impacts. His Bushman Trooper suit was not going to fail or be breached under the pummeling the attackers Centurions were giving it. But the impacting shock-waves those fist and kicks were making it threw the armor. They were going all the way to his softer organs that were protected by the hard outer layer of body armor. He could feel each additional machine jump on him, but he still was trying to fight them off before they killed him. He might have both of his armed pinned to his chest. But that left freeish, his helmeted covered head and similarly covered legs to fight the cylons off with. He did not intend to be taken alive, and if he could take a few more with him? Well that was okay to, but he had to do something be for that turn of events was allowed to happen.

The one word he had been able to get out, before his radio had been damaged by the cylon fire. Was the code word "Omega". The 2nd General order that the people from Earth were fighting under, it was all about how to deal with modern Human tech. And not allowing it to fall into cylon or any other enemy hands. Basically it said. That was anything that was not made in the 12 Colonies of Kobal, must not fall into enemy hands. If something did fall into their hands, than it was to be recovered no matter what the cost and they needed to do it as fast as possible. That one code word John had been able to get out. Was to announce, that this very thing was about to happen. The radio message was received by a radio operator at the Main support base. And it was almost instantly relayed to every scout, or person with a radio that went all the back to the Settlement at the speed of light.

Robin and Eva were so close to John. That they had been able to receive the original broadcast from him, without it needed to belay to them. They had tried repeatedly to make contact with John again and again. Just so that they could get some clarification about what was going on, and how they could help. They only thing that they knew for sure, was that he was not responding to the messages they were sending to him, now that they were on the right radio frequency. This made Eva and Robin push harder to reach John, as fast as they could. It was more because John was a dear friend than supporting General Order 2. Most of the time you're where fighting for your friends, and not the flags that you were supporting. After the second round of effort to contact their friend that failed, the two women tried to find another gear passed overdrive that they were in now.

The Delilah armor was design for females from the start, and it was one of the few designed that made it into production that way. Eva and Robin had fallen in love with the suits when they had first seen them in a sales flyer from Northern Gun. Theirs had been heavily modified with paint, and a more feminine looking panels than was normal, even for a stock Delilah. The weapons capabilities and armor level were exactly the same as the normal production model, but theirs had a just different "look" about them compared to the regular production suit. They had lucked into the pair of suits, when the original person that had ordered the pair. Had not been able to take delivery for some reason, or even make the final payment for the suits. The Sale Clerk had remembered Eva and Robin being interested in a suit like these some months earlier. And after a quick contact message to see if they were still interested. They had settled on the price, for the pair of modified war-machines. As soon as payment was accepted, the new more oddly looking than normal machines. Were theirs for a cheaper price than a normal suit would have cost new off the line, not counting shipping cost and modifications cost. The Northern Gun sales team and Northern Gun had made out like a bandit. The original ordering unit had to pay a deposit of half the price of the machines upfront. The Sales people would end up getting the two machines off the lot with over25 percent markup on the whole deal. That was even after Eva and Robin getting the price for a lower than a non-modified suit was listed at.

It was in these odd looking machines, which after the last try to contact John had failed. The pair started to run as fast as they could to reach their friend. They both forgot the meaning of words like stealth, and collateral damage as they charged head long to save their friend. A Delilah had a top speed over open and clear land, of just under 120 mph. And it could maintain that high of a speed, for hours and hours. The down side was that the suit needed input to move, so it fell to the body inside the suit to provide that limited amount of input. It was like they were running for real, but they were not using as much energy as a slow jog would have taken to reach that top speed. It was very tiring for the two women to be moving at that rate for those hours and dodging huge trees along the way. But they could cover a lot more terrain in the suits, then without them. The terrain was not perfect for the high speed runs, far from it and they were not covering the ground at the listed top speed of the machines. But it still was using up their bodies stores of energy, and they were doing it fast.

After the last burst of adrenaline wore off, or more to the point was burned up by their bodies. They had to slow down to a still fast, but more sustainable 60 to 70 mph. They still would tire out, but not for some time. This was thanks in large part to their years of training, and that they were in there late 20's and in near perfect physical shape. This pace even would allow them to have a little energy left to bust to full speed in a few hours. It was in case, they needed it when they got to where they needed to be. This ability to manage your bodies energy levels, was one of the hardest skills to teach robot and powered battle armor pilots. Passing that training was also was the bar, which was used to separate good jocks from the not so good ones during any job interviews.

Robin and Eva knew the general area that John had been working for this week, and they knew where he would lead any newly found Colonials. They also knew where he might go, when/if things went bad on him. With those three bits of information, or data point. They had an idea were to start looking for John. That was what it was like, when you were working with close friends. They picked up your patterns without knowing it. Eva and Robin were moving more like a pair of out of control freight trains, than scouts under the massive tree tops. And like an out of control freight train, they were not going to let much get in there way today.

Eva only noticed the still smoking cylon, as it passed the line of site out corner of her right eye. She had to slow down some and circle back to the wrecked machine, to make sure it was what she thought it was. That would be the first sign that they were on the right path. She radioed her friend about the new course they needed to take with this new data point. They were now on a headed off to one side but on a parallel course, using the wrecked machines as a sigh posts to make any adjustments along the way. They hoped to use them to tell her or Robin when they needed to alter their course, to keep them heading the right way. It was a risk, but it was also the only clues they had to go on, for now. Sometimes you just had to roll the hard six.

Eva and Robin hopped that they were paralleling the path that John was leaving them. Eva was on the left side of the maybe path and Robin was on the right side. Each were looking in front of them and off to one side as they were moving. They hopped that between the two of these paths, they could catch any sudden changes of directions. So far it seemed to have been working, at least they were finding cylon hulk ever few hundreds of yards. So when Robin noticed a twelve foot tall wall of wood blocking her way. It was already very close when it came into view, at the speed they were traveling in such close quarters it limited her options. It was not that tall of a wall, to her in her powered armor. So she used the powerful robot legs, to propel her over the wooden obstruction with an almost obscene ease. It was out of habit that she looked at the obstacle as she went over the top of as she went over the obstacle. She would have been looking to see if anything or more importantly any one. That might have been using the wooden wall as cover from the on rushing battle armor. It was kind of like a back woods hiker looking over a down log, and looking to see if there was a snake on the off side or not. The only thing that was behind the wall wood made by a mass of trees and interlocking thick limbs, were more plants. Those planets were trying to take advantage of the hole in the top canopy, to grow in the now available sun light. She did not even miss a half step, when she landed on the other side of the wooden wall. She just kept right on going about her task that she had set her mind. A track and field high hurdlers would have approved of her form at the leap over the obstacle. As soon as the wooden wall was behind her, she had already forgotten about it.

Eva slowed her pace a little as her external directional microphone picked up something that was different than what it had been earlier. She quick worked out that it was starting to pick up some artificially made noise being made ahead of her. It sounded, to her, like metal banging against metal and without any discernible rhythm. It also seemed that it was still on the heading that they had been fallowing. All of the sudden there was another wall of wood in front of her this time. Her built in systems quickly told her that this one was about 80 feet high, and it was about a dozen feet thick of near oak. It was one of the softer woods found on this planet. Eva smiled to herself and dropped one shoulder down, and activated her Jet Boosters on her legs and feet, and then all she had to do was hang on. This maneuver was what was called "The Ride". They had a whole chapter about in the Dash One Manual of Operation book, which had come with her new battle armor. Robin was not the only Robot Jock what was known to have a wild streak that was best measured in feet across.

The over nine foot tall, four foot wide, and 540 pound suit of powered armor not counting the mass of the solider inside of it, hit the wood wall at the fastest the machine could move through the air. It was hitting the wood barrier with all of the energy generated by that amount of mass and speed. And all of that force was all focused on the small area of one shoulder, and that was against the tall wood wall. That was well? Let's just call it an impressive site, when seen from the other end of the wooden blockage. All of the hard and dried wood, that was within four feet around the center point of contact with the armored covered shoulder. Was just turned into dust, or soft powered wood within an instant of her impact with her side of the blockage. As you moved farther away from the point of impact, the wood projectiles grew in size quickly. They went from dust sized, to tooth picked size, and soon to good sized firewood logs. All of this flying debris was providing some concealment from the suit surrounded by the cloud of flying wood. Not exactly cover, but good concealment as the machine and pilot landed in the somewhat open area behind the large wooden obstacle. The planned landing area would be close to what her sensors told her was the nearest enemy unit to a mass of "stuff' that might be John. It had only taken her a few heartbeats to come up with this "battle plan". That is if you wanted to call it a battle plan, in any kind of way. Most professional soldiers would have called it reckless, but it ranked as good on style points.

Centurion 14007 had been the last cylons to catch up to the stranger that had been firing at the over flying Raiders, and then the closing ranks of ground supporting cylons. He had to slow his run through the heavy forest, due to damage to his right hip. That had happened not long after getting the direction of travel from a fellow Centurion that was then taken off the air so afterwards. The damage had not been to weapons fire of any kind, but to simple wear and tear from over use of the joint. Something in his programing had told him to come anyway, at the best speed that it could make. Even with the damage, and that the damage would get worse with this overuse. So like a slave, damage and all. 14007 had gone to the sounds of battle, in the nearby forest.

The damage in the Centurion's hip area had been building up for some time, and it was due to come in and be lifted off the planet to a Basestar. There it would be repair that night, but now it would have to wait again. This short patrol was to be it last, for a while. That is until the Raiders had been shot down, and it had to stress the worn joint even more. One of the messages that he had sent out, not long after starting his movement to contact was that the joint had failed. It would need to be picked up as soon as possible. It still could make it back to base on his own power but his speed would have been limited to only what a limping human could have mange. That would have taken the cylon about four days to reach that point. Centurion 14007 was not happy about this whole day, and one part of his limited mind thought that it just might get worse. It knew that it should have been pulled off planet for maintenance well before the hip had failed, but the human forms had not done that. The report had said that it was not the best use of resources at this time. 14007 needed something to take its computer cycles away from this line of thought, before it came back on it. He could fell the inhibitor doing its job, and he could do nothing about it.

Its internal computer was now being directed from two different sources within the Centurion. It found something to work on. It quickly assessed that it was not needed to subdue, the stranger on the ground under the mass of moving Centurions. So it started to scan the local area to see if there were any more signs of other fleeing targets. 14007 knew that humans rare operated alone outside of some built up areas. It was also known to 14007, that humans never acted the way this target did. That is unless; it was covering the escape of the smaller type of targets. 14007 was a survivor of the Caprica operation. It had completed the first quick scan of the area, and had just started to do a more detailed review of everything that was going on around it. That was when its audio system picked the sound of something closing on its location threw the heavy woods. The on board computer told 14007, that the sound was running metal feet like Centurions. But this was moving both faster and striking harder than a single metal cylon would had been making. The targeting systems had just highlighted a section a large blockage of fallen trees with a big red circle. That was when the area in the circle exploded outwards, right into the one red eyed face of the Centurion.

To 14007's systems it looked like a large strange human like object came thru the log wall covered in a halo of debris. It was partially cloaking and covered by the splintered wood, and dust radiating from the now breached wooden wall. The huge human shaped object was sailing through the air, and landed on its left side shoulder first but it still kept moving. While it was flipping feet over head to a stop, and the flying wave of wood dissipated. 14007 was able to get a few good images of the "head", of the nine and a half foot tall metal monster. The head was painted with amazing skills to look like a golden hair human with an archaic style helmet cover part of its head. The whole armor was painted to look like a stylized Valkyrie, compete with life like painted wings across the back of the metal beast. The skill and the meaning of the paint work, was almost completely lost on the cylon standing not that far from the strange sight. A simple few lines of code became a set of priority one commands. Those lines of code were very simple codes. Basically it said this is strange, fire until strange is not moving and these code lines kicked in. 14007 brought up its Large External Weapons Mount 15mm on line. The Centurion quickly dropped the targeting system to line up the apparition in front of the cylon with cylon's well-known blinding speed action.

Eva's impact was governed by laws that had been first written down by Newton, centuries ago. When she hit the wall of wooden blockage, she lost some speed because the transfer of energy from her into the wooden wall. That transfer of energy was what caused the wood to shatter the way that it had, clearing the way for her to clear the obstacle. This also caused her to start a slow tumble after the wood gave way, for her passage through it. Eva had spent years fighting in suits, not unlike this one she had on today. So she knew what to do, to get her suit to land were and how she wanted it to. It was almost a Zen like experience, as she let her muscles memory do the hard work of what needed to be done over the next few heartbeats. When she came to stop both of her legs, knees to ankles, were touching the ground supporting most of her weight. Her right arm, palm down, had come down and slammed into the dirt two or three inches before stopping. Now that the hand and its attached arm, was supporting some of her forward leaning weight of her and her fighting machine. The end state looked a lot like a three point stance for American rules football defensive lineman. She was facing a wiggling pile of metal that reminded her of the game Pickup Sticks, just this one was made out of moving metal. Just where she had thought they would be at the end of her little acrobatics. That is before she had taken the short cut, threw the massive fallen tree.

Just as she was smiling to herself and was congratulating herself for both good piloting and planning, something happened that interrupted her train of thought. A short line of impacts rocked her machine. They starting at her left hip and moving up to her armor covered helmet. The hits did not do a lot of damage with each hit. And her updating systems alerted her that the damage was from the larger bore cylon weapon in the 15mm range, firing armor piercing ammunition. When she turned to look in the direction of where the incoming fire had come from, she saw a lone Centurion holding one of those large hand carried weapons. The weapon fired another burst of ten rounds towards Eva's machine as she was looking in that direction. This time the fire swept from the head of her machine, going down towards the waist area. For a second time her sensors showed that the damage was minor for the nine foot tall machine.

The lone cylon fighter had not been picked up by her sensors for some reason, maybe because it had not been moving at the time her systems did a sweep of the area. Eva must have been slow picking up on the new threat, because the lone cylon put another burst of weapons fire into her stationary machine. This time the rounds impacts stayed clustered in the torso area of her suit of armor. Some of the elaborate paint job on her machine was ruined, again. Eva first noticed the spent shells being ejected from the weapon, and then her eyes saw the damage done to her paint job, she was upset. She was very upset, she had just paid someone to repaint over the already repaired damage plates to even out the paint job. Now she was going to have to have someone do it again.

Now that Eva was focused on this new attacker, it was about to not like the event. "Well, I did not see you little fraker. What are you doing away from the rest of your little group, like a wallflower at a dance?" She had more to say but another burst impacting her machine stopped her. "Hey you're wrecking my paint!" She later would not claim to remember saying anything, but she did remember that she but a burst from her NG-X1-11 Ion Blaster into the enemy machine that impacted right on the chin of the Centurion oddly shaped head. That was all it took, and the high tech killing machine was not going to need to have its hip repaired, or any other repairs…ever again.

14007 main CPU "Saw" the crest on one side of the helmet of the Feminine painted Delilah had started to glow, then let lose a long rapid fire pulse of energy in his direction. The energy contacted the metal machine at lower area of the football shaped head. Then the CPU never "saw" anything again. 14007 did not feel "pain", but it did feel the hit to its face. Then it was not feeling anything ever again, as the Earth made weapon did is job.

After the weapon had stopped firing, the bipedal machine looked like a god had come down from the sky and taken a big bite out of the top of the still standing and still very still cylon machine. All of the leg joints of the Centurion had been locked down to take the recoil produced by the large weapon and not knock the cylon on to its broad back when it was fired. When the head, neck and most of top torso had been removed, the legs were without command, and still in joint lock mode. They stayed lock down making the war-machine look like a headless scare crow, standing alone in the deep wet woods surround by a crop of metal human like growths.

With that close ranged nuisance taken care of, Eva turned back to face the main threat. It was directly in front of her war-machine that she was strapped into. With the near treat and surprise threat taken care of, she rose into a standing position. Moving forward as she was coming out of the three point stance facing, the still wiggling mass of metal. Metal fingers at the end of each of the arms closed into massive combat fist. She could do some pretty good damage with those high tech metal covered fist alone, but that was not her intent right at that moment. She was only moving the very dexterous fingers out of the way for the weapons, which she really wanted to use on these attackers of her friend. With the finger joints out of the way, a long thin metal rods started to extend from the outer cover of the Plasma Ejectors mounted higher on the forearm on each of the Delilah arms. These rods where going to be her weapon of choose for the next few minutes.

The movement or the sound of cylon 14007 firing its hand carried weapon let the moving pile of metal know something was wrong. At least wrong from their point of view, and maybe good for their target thy wanted to capture. The crashing of something going through the downed tree, could have been another troop of Centurions come to help with the capture. The new model Centurion were strong enough to do something like that. That is if they wanted to, and had enough time, maybe. All cylons tended to think that they could do anything, and physics could go get fraked. The sound of weapons fire, now that was something totally different in the cylons programing. They were still trying to hold down the odd metal covered human like shape. For fight now they seemed to have it under somewhat of control. The Centurions closer to the top of the mass of moving legs, arms and other body parts. Started to try to assess the new treat if any, was around them. The advance warning provided by 14007 did not help that much, because they were so intertwined in that heap. That only a few of their number could even extract an arm, with their built in weapon in time. The bad part was that they were firing at the wrong target. They had found one enemy, and had stopped looking for a second one that might be near them. The term is called Target Fixation, and it seemed like the Centurions were just vulnerable to this phenomenon as humans were.

Robin started to take sporadic cylon fire, but the light caliber automatic weapons was very under powered. At least compared to what a Delilah suit was designed to take on back home, all the while keeping it in the heart of the battle. All it did for the most part, for the few times they were able to score any hits. Was only to wreck part of the paint job on her machine's front, which she loved so much. While the mass of Centurions were focusing on Robin. They did not notice an almost identical panted Delilah, this one also covered in wood dust coming from a different angle and also headed for them with building speed. They would not live long enough, to truly understand the magnitude of the mistake they had just made.

Eva and Robin made it to the pile about the same time, and the pairs of built in Vibro weapons rapidly come into play. They started to slash through the metal machines from two different locations, going deeper into the pile of metal with each swing of their powerful and armored arms. The two combat veterans made short work of the moving pile of metal cylons, with very little wasted movement or energy spent on this task. They developed rhythm of slashing with one hand, and move the severed bodies' with a quick swipe with the other hand. It was almost robotic in motion, but you would be surprised how much thinking they had to do to do it safely. They were hoping that there friend was still alive under the mass of metal cylons. Once most of the cylons had been taken care off the top of the pile. The pair of woman could start to see their friend armor threw gaps in the remaining mass of metal cylons. To their relief, he was still moving under what was left of the cylon force that was still on top of him.

John was at the bottom of an unknown number of moving metal cylons that were seeming to hit him with sledgehammers. The only thing he knew as a fact, was that it was a lot of the metal bastard were on top of him. He had to change his focus as the weight on his armor grew. He was now only trying to stop them from opening him up, like a pack of dogs on a T-Rex bone. John could not see out of his dark visor, due to all that he could see was some part of Centurion he could not identify covering it. That let some part of his mind to play over and over again. A set of vivid images of the cylons finally being successful in cracking him out of his armor. He knew it was a losing fight, but he still was not going to go down without at least try to fight them off. Without a working radio set. He had no idea that help had arrived, or if it would arrive before he died or god forbid he was captured alive. He could feel every impact of cylon fist, feet, knees and what else they were using on his body. His built in support systems were telling him. That there was a steadily growing outward pressure on his extremities, that were about to cross into the red zone for danger. His HUD was a mass of red and amber glowing warning indicators that seemed to grow in number with each impact he felt threw his body armor. As the number of lights grew, he was about to die. And he knew that, and that he had failed to save the lives of those weaker than him. A single tear rolled down his face as anger fueled his muscles again, and he renewed his assault on the mass of metal trying to hold him in place. He might have failed, but he was so not going to go out as a failure. He did not notice that one indicator showed a change in its outside readings threw the red rage he was living.

The first he knew something was up, was when a cylon body was jerked off of his face plate. From his limited view, he saw that it had went flying through the air and out of his line of sight. He still did not know what was going on. It was just now that how he could see some sun light coming in thru the tree tops and metal cylon bodies. He started to fight harder with is remaining strength, until he saw a flash of a paint job that he knew so well, out of one corner of his visor. That brief flash was enough to stop him from taking a weak swing at them, when an arm that had been so recently pinned to his chest. Now he was finally able to move his arms more fully, and was a better help with his defense. When he was able to move one arm again, he pulled and activated a Vibro Dagger out of his carrying holster in one smooth motion. His fingers were still tingling from the restricted blood flow to that hand, but it was still usable enough for him to use it. Even if he was still flat on his back, he was not out of the fight. At least he, did not think so.

The two powered augmented suits reached down, and gently picked up his battered suit of armor by the shoulders. They slowly applied power, until John's suit of armor was standing on its own if unsteady metal and ceramic covered feet. He had only been able to damage a few enemy cylons, and none with his dagger while he had been pinned to the ground. That did not mean that John was still not game as Frak to keep fighting. The pair of female painted suits of powered armored had just saved him, from a no doubt painful interview with one of the human form cylons. And that was the best case scenario that anyone could come up with. As John was lifted to his feet, he saw a swirling mass of fireflies in his whole field of view. He just managed to say on his feet, he was lucky. He knew better than to swing his head around, to try to clear those flashing dots of light. That would have only made them both worse and he might wound up on his butt…again.

When Robin and Eva had almost all of the now non-functioning machine off of their friend, they could see the incredible amount of damage done to his armor in such a short amount of time. It looked someone had attacked John with many massive sledge hammers. Those hammers had left craters like marks, and long slash like marks all over his high tech protection system. He had dents latterly from the top head covering helmet, to toes of his outer armor covering of his feet. Eva had bent down first to lift the battered man up out of the dent in the dirt the dog pile had made with the combined mass. If the Bushman Troop had not been moving slightly with some jerky movements. They would have thought, that, they had arrived too late to save John. Robin was only a second behind Eva, when she toke the other dented arm in her powered fingers. The two slowly applied pressure and the battered body armor was starting to move into a more normal orientation. As soon as John had his feet under him, but still being steady by the two women. The battered face plate of his armor popped open, like it as new out of the factory. The opened visor now framed this strong black face, and it was smiling back at the two female scouts as if they had been angels that had come down from on high. The thankful look was very evident on his face, as well as one of two tears still working their way down his dark stubble covered face.

John was panting heavily out his slack jawed mouth, because of the effort the fight had taken so much out of him. But this was John, and somehow he managed to talk anyway. "Well, it is sure nice to see you guys. I don't know that I was going to make it there, for a few seconds or not." He tried to give a cocky grin to his two saviors, but it only came across as more tired than anything else. Having a close brush with death tended to take a lot out of a person.

Robin touched a button inside her right hand gauntlet, and her own face plate open to let the cool refreshing air hit her in the face. She also knew, from personal experience. That after living through something like that. You just needed to see a friendly face looking back at you and not some mass of steel armor. "We didn't know if we would be able to make it, before they popped you out of your suit like an old fashion Jack in the Box." She was looking at him closely, but she could not tell how hurt he was or might be. At least not by just looking at the exposed part of his face framed by his battered armor. That would have to wait till they took the time to help him out of the heavily damaged armor, and that was something that they could not do at their current location. "Can you walk?" The pitch and tone of her voice, was enough to let John know. That if he was no really okay, he needed to let them know right then, because not only was his life at risk. Eva and Robin's lives were now equally at risk, if he was not completely honest with them.

John looked down at this battered armor covered legs and tried to move them. It was very painful to bend the legs. And it only moved a few degrees, before it would lock up and stop moving no matter how hard he tried to get it bending some more. When he turned the leg to one side, he could see that a damaged part of his armor, had hit a second damaged part or area of his armor. He put a little more pressure, but he could tell that and it would not move forward any more. John frowned as he assessed the damage to his leg covering, and felt the pain shooting up and down in both of his legs and deep in his chest. He was looking towards Robin when he started talking, and concern colored his normally strong voice. "Not fast and not for long. I'm pretty beat up Amazon. The armor held up, but I'm not so good on the soft parts insides." Even John's built in systems could not tell how much damage his body had taken in the cylon assaults.

Before he could say more a loud engine like noise came up on them without any warning, and over flew the trio at just below the speed of sound. Eva and Robin had been so concerned with John, neither woman had kept an eye on their radar scopes. The three watched a single cylon Raider make a high energy power climb, and then it tried to do a return to target maneuver at the top of its power climb. The Raider bleeds off its speed, and flipped over and started falling back towards the ground. It was picking up speed from both its engines and the pull of the planet, but was not making any crazy adjustments as it fell towards the ground. It was only make a few slight adjustments to keep the target area lined up in its weapons cross-hairs. The attacking Raider was just fallowing a pattern that it knew would do the job.

Eva and Robin had tracked the over flying Raider automatically, with their targeting systems now that they knew they were in trouble. They held there fire as the quickly approaching Raider closed on them, they had to wait and hold their fire until just the right moment. When it started to fire its under-wing mounted weapons, the two women released John and raised both of their arms toward the attacking flying craft. The four NG-X2-11 Plasma Ejectors fired towards the sky, and at their maximum rate of discharge at closing fighter. Robin hit a second button inside her armored glove, and a box on the back of her suit swung out of it storage location to sit over one of her massive armored shoulders. It popped open at one end, and a single Min-Missile raced up the faint trail left in the air by the Plasma weapons discharges on their way to the closing target. They had just launched their own wave of destruction up at the closing Raider that was too predictable to live past today.

The attacking Raider was new to this kind of combat. Every other time this particular craft had seen action, it had all been space based going against Colonial Vipers or even powerless Battlestars. It had been transferred by a cylon resupply ship, which had only been in system a few days to drop off requested equipment and supplies. It had been only by accident that it had been the first Raider, which had been able to find this area to respond to the cries of the dying Centurions as they were sliced and diced by Robin and Eva. So with little battle experience of any kind, besides shooting at disabled ships, it moved to attacked. It had no idea of how to defend itself from any ground fire, much less this odd type of Directed Energy Weapon fire that was coming up at it with such amazing speed. The first blast of plasma struck the long canoe shaped center section, just missing the scanning red eye's cover plate on the Raider by a handful of inches. The intelligence that was controlling the fighter, did not have time to think after that. Much less start reacting to the threat, before the second blast hit the underside of the ship. This hit was near the left wing under-mounted KEW weapons mount.

The damage was massive, and the little cylon Raider started to come apart, as the now non-aerodynamic craft. Started to not react well, to the fast moving air moving around the Raider class ship at supersonic speed. Systems in the Raiders started to short out, when two more blast of sun hot plasma stuck the now exposed top of the slightly more aerodynamic wing. The controlling body knew it was dying, and when it tried to activate the device to make the pain stop, and transfer back to the safety of home. The Raider was shocked when it failed to operate, that it was frozen for three seconds. It could nothing but fall towards the ground. The Raider was in what would have been called "an out of control condition." In other words, it was falling and about to go "boom". When that fall came to a sudden stop very soon. The dog smart machine knew it was going to die, and was not come back just before the Mini-Missile arrived. That weapon had been built somewhere referred to as Rift's Earth, stuck the falling one time space craft dead center on the top ridge. The Ridge that ran the length from bow to the stern mounted engines of the cylon made craft.

The craft was already dying but as the speeding missile made impact with the falling craft it had been aimed at. The limited electronics of the small missile were crushed when the hard nosecone folded back into the missile main body by the force of impact with the Raider. The missile was being crushed from the front towards the back mounted engine. As the missiles rocket engine continued to fire adding more force to the speed it had already built up, and the inertia of the mass of the whole weapon. The nosecone and then electronics package was pushed backwards for about another inch and half. The moving mass then crashed the aptly named, crush switch mounted behind the small electronic package. When two previously separated connectors now touched the magic started to happen. A flash of electricity went through the device to wires leading to the warhead carried by the very small missile at its center of mass. The travels of this burst of electricity feed by a molten salt battler had to go to the detonator in the very center of the explosive. In technical terms the warhead went sensitive. To very one else without letter after their names. They would say that the warhead went boom, a big bada boom.

The time from when the mini-missile was leaving the launcher on Robin's machine, to the warhead going unstable, was only two to three seconds in real time. The rare Plasma war-headed Mini-missile finished into existence in less than microsecond after the detonator went active. Then it started turning the falling cylon flying machine into small, burning parts falling to the ground at varying speeds on impact with the ground. The launcher on Robin's shoulder auto returned to his storage place when Robin looked at a projected icon in the open face plate of her helmet. It would not be needed against this target again. The auto storing of the launcher was to protect the remaining weapons from hostile fire and keep them out of the way of the user in the suit.

Robin and Eva watched the craft spread its burning remains out in an upside down cone shape that was pointed towards the waiting hard ground, for a few seconds. Eva looked back to her two friends who were watching her with a set of stunned expression on their faces. The use of any expendable ammunition had not been encouraged. That was due to the limited amount in that were storage, and they could not replace them with new built replacement rounds. The use of missile weapons had been almost ordered not to be used. That is unless by direct order, or planned for its use by the ground force commander. In other words, they most likely would not be able to get a replacement for the weapon Robin has just used. That is unless they wanted to buy one with their own money, and it would not be cheap. That is if they could find someone who wanted to part with the hard to find rocket.

Robin saw the looks that she was getting, and did a slight shrug of a shoulder then raises a corner of one lip. That sly smile was all she was going to say about her using one of her mini missiles. "I think we need to put some miles between us and that." Robin first pointed to what was left of the smoke trails left by falling Raider's parts. Then she pointed around to the new supply of used Centurion parts all over the wet ground around them. She did not need to say that they were going to have to leave all of that nice recyclable metal behind. That was too bad, but they had other issues to deal with, like living for the next few days as they tried to avoid some no doubt very upset cylons.

Robin gave a tight lip smile to John. She knew that John was not going to like what was about to happen, but she could not see any way around it. At least not away around it with the damage his Bushman Trooper armor had taken. "I will take first lift." She did not let Eva or John have a second word about the idea, before she bent down a little and used both of her suits arms. She used the extra strength supplied by the suit, to lift the armored covered John up and put him in the classic fireman's carry position. John was so stunned that he was just sputtering in the air, as he was man handled by Robin in her larger powered armor. While she was getting the body armored John into a better position she was talking to her partner in crime. "Eva you need to cover us for the next few miles. Then we can switch, and you can carry Mr. Lead Butt here for a while." She was already moving through the woods as she was finishing her last words. She did a slight turn in one direction, to go through the now wood arched doorway in the 80 foot all wall. The one that Eva had made just a few minutes before with her suit.

John who was now facing away from them, now that he was spread over the side and shoulders of the larger suite of armor. He had not been able to get his mind to mouth interface to work the way they were supposed to, unit Robin has started moving away from the battle site. "Hey don't I get a say in this?" The tone was light, but it had just a little a bit of concern tinted at the end of his statement. If any of a few dozen people saw this, he would not live it down… ever. And he knew this, pride is a hard mistress sometimes.

Both women replied "NO!" then closed their face plates, and they were off deeper into the woods slowly picking up speed and careful not to leave any signs of their line of travel. They needed the HUD built into their suits, to dodge the limbs and small trees at the speed the pair were now moving at. John was smart enough to quickly activate his helmet so that his face was covered again, by the thinner clear if cracked armor of his visor. That had just finishing happening before the first largeish hard wood branch hit him hard, very hard in the head. He was now only along for the ride, at least for the time being as he fought the desire to toss-up his lunch. Later he would never be able to say it was the concoction, or motion sickness, or just by the way he was being carried by Amazon that was causing his nausea.

Robin was letting Eva take point, and she was following close behind her. When they had not had enemy contact for about five minutes, she knew she needed to do something. She had not wanted to do, what needed to be done. However higher command needed an update and they should have sent one up, before they had left sight of John's battle. "Base this is Amazon. We have recovered the package intact. If a little worse for wear, but he is alive. We are E and Eing from the area of the hot, make that very hot recovery."

Robin turned her long ranged radio transmitter off after sending her update. She would still be listening to any message covering the airwaves. But she had only replied to a request for an updates that were directed at her, and only the ones that she felt were important. She felt that the rest could just go get bent. It was now an accepted fact, that the cylons could not pick up or track Radio transmission. Robin just did not have the energy to waste dealing with it, so off it went after any brief statement and/or update. Robin and Eva were "only" averaging about twenty mph on average in short rushes, but they had covered almost a dozen miles already. Robin was already starting to feel winded, after burning up so much energy on the run to get to John. Now that she was now carrying him, she was still burning up the calories. She was not going through them as fast as when they had been running or fighting, but they were still burning them at a higher than normal rate. Both of the women were in very good shape, but they had been pushing it hard for what seemed like hours and hours. They were not going to last long at this rate, but they did not have much choice in the matter. That is if they wanted to live to see another rainy day, on this cold world. This was going to be a gut check moment, you could pass it and live or fail it and maybe die. When had one of those moments in training, you passed or you checked out of the training. Today was not a training event.

After the second update had been set out, an older female voice came over Robin's radio. Robin could hear the relief in her voice, let her know that her message had been received at the main support base's command or at least the communication tent. "Amazon this is Base. We copy that you have retrieved the package intact." John was well liked by a long list of people, which were both from Earth and Colonial planets. If he had been lost, it would have been a minor blow to moral for those out on the pointy end of the stick for quite some time. If he had been killed, it was a good bet. That more than one act of retaliations against the cylons, would have been going out before dark this very day. That might not have been a bad thing for the short term, but some of those people would have taken risk, that would have gotten them killed. And if not killed they would go through whatever ammunition they deemed fit to use.

Robin gave a smile that no one would ever see. Then pulled up a digital map of the local area, and it was now projected on her HUD. It had different locations marked on it for her personnel use. She felt that a more detailed update should be sent this time, even if she was going to have to do it between gulps of air and fighting off muscle cramps. She trusted her partner to keep them safe, while she was distracted looked for a safe or safer place to be. It also helped her to not notice the burning in her legs, as they moved farther away from where they had found John. As she looked at the displayed map, she found that she had few options that she could see. She ended up having to pick one the least bad, of the options that she could see. With a few eye blinks the transmit option on her radio was active again, for her to use. "Base, we're moving to point Echo 5. I am requesting covering forces make a few distractions to help us make it. I am also asking that a medic be moved to that location. How do you copy?" That had been the longest update or radio transmission, she had sent since the sun had come up today. Or for the last week, Robin was not considered a talkative person by nature.

It was a few seconds before the voice came back over the radio. "Amazon. I copy that, and will pass it along to higher. Good luck, and stay safe out there." That was it, the transmission was cut off from the other end. She would not know if the medico would be sent out to them or not. Or even if any distractions were be done to help them escape. The three of them were on their own, till they at least got that that spot on the map that Robin had decided on. This was so that the three of them could concentrate on staying alive and not on anything that might distract them at the wrong time. Of course that did not mean that it did not suck. Robin was just going to leave it at that, her brain was not working as fast as it might have. Then again that was another reason, not to work alone in combat.

Eva jumped on the Radio waves, as soon as the she had heard the opening between Robin and further back. "Will do. Please keep us in the loop in any reports, which come in about contacts that could cause us problems on the way to our hide point."

Eva's and Robin's radio buzzed softly in the back ground, as a computer sent a data filled bust digital transmission to them from higher command. When it stopped making the sounds, the displays in both of the helmets updated in brief flashes to show and highlight the updated information. It now showed the reported locations of any known enemy and friendly units. They might even be close to their real world current locations. It was a copy of the data that command used for planning, but it would not be perfect information. Scouts often would forget to call in with updates in anything like a timely manner. The data was as updated, and correct as Major Weston had at the time it was sent to the two women. That were out in the deep woods, running for their lives and the friend over one of their shoulders. It was a bad situations, which could have broken some less strong willed people. It would even test these three.

Robin was too busy looking at the data, so it was Eva was the one to use the radio again. Robin had too much to do, and there was a limit to her multi-tasking skills and abilities. "Base, thank you for the update. We will see you when we see you. Also be advised, that we used one mini-missile retrieving the package. The targeted Raider was also hit with a few plasma blast and did not RTB." Eva had suddenly remember, that a request had been sent out weeks ago. That if any missile were used in combat? That a report should be sent back on how it did, or did not do. They had no idea why? Most people just chocked it up to some bean counter back in the Settlement. Not that it would help them get a replacement for the one that Robin has used.

For the next hour, the two women would travel for about twenty minutes. Then they would trade carrying the immobile John travel for twenty minutes, and then switch off again. It was during one of the transfers that they had to wait for a while, before they could start moving again. All three hearts had stopped while they waited. Something strange was happening in the forest, and it was not caused by them. Strange, could all too often equal death. It did help them recharge a little in catching their breath and the shot of adrenaline it gave the pair of carriers.

"What was that?" Robin stopped in mid transfer of John, and started to look around the close in woods and trees. That's trees which all of the sudden felt like the green and tans of the trees near them, were going to smother her as she was watching them. That was when the noise came faintly through the audio pickups again. Now that they were listen for it, Robin was able to pin point the direction that the noise was most likely had come from. With a few turns of her head she was able to localize it even more.

Now that the general direction was now more refined, both of the suits were able to zoom in on to something with their built in high tech optics systems. The HUD on both machines opened a picture in picture option on the display, for them to better use the data. That was being funneled onto those screens inches from there faces. There was some movement in the late evening air. This latest stop to swap carrying John, had taken place near the top of a good size hill. So the sound and movement was visible, from this over watch position they had inadvertently selected. The pair of scouts knew that they were moving erratically to help throw off any trailers, and avoid any ambushes and the slight hill was convenient. Now that they, were looking in the right direction. They could also detect the sound of weapons fire, which was still lightly reverberating through the cold air. Someone was causing a ruckus behind them, and some sound was also coming from the north of them. And more importantly it all was away from Robin and Eva's planned direction of travel to make it to the hide point.

Eva's robot tilted a little towards the barely audible sounds, it was mimicking the subtle movements of its pilot in the Robots cockpit. The low power radio sent a burst transmission to Robin. "Maybe someone out there is trying to draw off some of the tin heads for us." She went quite for a second to review the data that had been sent to them. It had seemed like days ago, when that data had come in. Eva was shocked to see that it had only been a hand full of hours. "Eva's voice was a little let down the next time she spoke. "I don't have any information on who might be working that area Robin. What do you think?"

Robin finished transfer John to the other woman. The sound was still being picked up by their audio pickups. Robin could tell that it was softer; maybe it was farther away from them now. With the transfer complete Robin had to flex her shoulders, and then looked around them again. "I don't know either. It could be that some friends come in from another area at the quick step, and hit the first group of cylons they found. Let's not waist the diversion, if it is for us."

John was not moving or making noise of any kind, after about the first hour of travel, by being carried on one of the women's shoulders. During one of the stops to transfer him like a sack of potatoes. He had asked for a delay, and he used one of the items in his private little first aid kit that was carried inside his suit. He would sleep for most of a day, after the pill had started to work its chemical magic. Was it dangerous to take a knock out pill at this point in time? Yes, but with him not moving it made the trip less damaging to him. It also would be easier on who ever happened to be carrying him. In short it was well worth the risk, besides if things got hot again. Robin or Eva could always just pop him with an auto Go-Go shot. That would have him as combat ready, as he could be in a few seconds of the high tech shot hitting his blood stream.

When he came back to the world after the pill wore off, if the Go-Go shot was not used. He would be hurting more, than how he felt at the time he had taken the Knockout pill. But at least he would not need to remember a few things that happened on along the way. Like the pain of being jostled by the two women carrying him cross country at over twenty mph. If he was relaxed he body would not be tense when he was knocked up against something hard. Pain was your body's way of telling you. If you keep this crap up, I'm really going to hurt you. Plus it was not like he could help, if they were attacked. Since he did not have a weapon besides a dagger, oh he did have the broken rifle and vibro-sword that was dead. Before the pill had taken him into the deep drugged sleep, he had a sly smile on his face. At least he would not have to worry about going into shock. He had always been told something about shock. It was that shock is your body's way of telling you that you really don't want to remember what is about to happen to you. He was thinking about how true that statement was when his brain finally shut down on him.

The sun was had been gone from the sky for a few hours, when the three had arrived at the location Robin had wanted to reach. They had only the one hint of combat near them, since they had pulled John out from under the pile of dog piling cylons. Echo Five had been used as a support base when the Cylons had gotten to close to the Forward Base, with a large ground patrol one time. When they had been spotted again, the base had moved on to another new location to wear it currently was hiding at. After the cylons started to look in another area more heavily. A few rough cut wood cabins been left on site after the move. It had been a risk to leave them in place, but with some help from the Colonials that were growing in numbers. It had seemed to work out for the best, if they were left in place and intact. The Colonial helpers had left hints in the surrounding around forested area, and in the cabins themselves. This should be good enough, to lead anyone to think. That the cabins had been left by some early explorers, from New Caprica. Maybe they were built by someone who needed a little extra breathing space, after being held in those metal cans for so long. It was not unheard of with rumors rampant, still of lost homestead sights around the area that New Caprica had been set up. The cabins could also have been set up by small groups out gathering smoking weed. The scouts sent out from the Settlement to look for those rumored groups, had not found one yet. But they were out there still looking, just in case.

When Eva and Robin walked to the outer edge of the camp site with their weapons at the ready, until they saw that a rock was placed on top of another large rocks. The rocks were in a stack of four stone out of line of sight with any of the cabins. This was a sign to worn other, that someone was already there in the abandon base. The pair were not worried about it being an unfriendly person, because they would not have known which rocks to move. Much less were to place them to give the proper signal. So when a person came out the door of one of the cabins. The pair of scouts did not activated their weapons, and shoot first and ask questions maybe later.

There were in fact four people waiting for them in this old campsite. Two of them were medical personnel, waiting to help and evaluate John. The other two wanted to evaluate how well his armor stood up to the literal pounding, it had taken by that mass of metal cylons. Robin and Eva were both able to get some sleep, as the other group took over looking after John, his armor, and the safety of for both groups. Eva and Robin recharged some or at least grab a few hours uninterrupted shut eye, and let their muscles get rid of some of the built up lactic acid from a long day of hard work and combat induced stress.

#####

The day had not being going well for the cylon Number One called John. He had started a practice, which was software related, without let any of the others human form cylons knowing about it. This was very much against the all of the rules that the cylons were supposed to operate under. But it was not like the Number Ones had not done this before, to both the other human forms cylons and the Centurions. Now whenever a non-human form was on patrol it, would keep down loading data from all of its sensors at a constant rate. This data dump would only go to this location on Johns command Basestar, and not the centralized data network. He would have liked it better, if he could have had the feed reporting to the cylon building in the camp instead. But that would have taken a lot of extra effort, energy, and equipment to both set up and run. And John knew that he did not have enough of both to do the job effectively. So he stayed on his basestar, now and have the access to all of those data feeds from his ground forces. The new data feed was to support his other little project, that of tracking some of the humans outside of the camp to were ever they were going.

He had let a small group of humans "escape" from his little fun house, a few days before. He had made sure, that he could track them from a distance and then loosened the tail. He did not want to give it away, that this bait was being fallowed to any outside forces. He wanted to know where, and what all of the humans rats, that had been sneaking out had been going. He still was thinking that somehow those Colonials were the key ones that were responsible for everything that had been happening to him lately. He had wished that they would have been able to get farther, before they died. On the upside, he did get some good information from the project, even if it was not as much as he wanted. About all he could say. Was that it was more information, than he had before the bait had been taken out of play.

The transmissions had been too spotty and unclear for much detailed analysis to be done, for the Number One to really let him know anything concrete. What was going on at the point of the action both in real time and afterwards, yet. It could have been a onetime thing after all the interference this planet had been generating, since his people had landed on this mud ball. Now he knew better, all of the interference was due to enemy action, and not nature. He had several different images displayed floating in the air around him. They had come from the attacking wave of ground Centurions, which had found a stranger with the bait, he had let out of the out of his camp. He could not believe it, but what had been killing his people. It looked to him to be some kind of cylons or other artificial life forms and with a human face. Without knowing he was doing it. John started to talk to himself, as he tried to work through the problems now before him. "Well it goes make some sense, if in an odd sort of way. This planet did not have any other higher life forms, besides sea based. So if metal life forms want to have a place to live, this did work pretty well." The habit of talking to himself was getting worse, the more time he stayed in this hidden star system. But he had no way of knowing he was doing it. He also had still images of the different types of ground fighters that had shown up so far. The first one was a very bulking human based Centurion that was seen with his bait. He took the image and rotated around to different angles. So that he could view as much of it, as he could from the limited data he had on hand and soak it all in. He then moved the image, and all of the supporting data for that image to a separate file in the wet interface.

He also had good images of the massive nine foot tall machines, which were painted to look like some adolescent's dream of winged female warrior. John looked back as some of the images taken from his failed attack on what he thought had been a Colonial outpost or communication hut. These images were joined by versions with wolfs heads, demons for who knew were with wings, some looked like what the Colonials would have called Harpy's. He also had a whole set of different looking bone motif designed war-machines. Those were only the ones that the troops on planet could send back threw transmissions. That is before they were blown apart, by the strange weapons these odd looking and acting cylons were packing. John still had no idea how those odd weapons worked, and why they were interfering with the downloading of his cylons into new bodies. He had been hoping that his bait would take him to someplace where his Centurions might be able to "acquire" a few of them.

One of the major reasons that John was in distress, was that these new metal cylons must know that they had fellow living machines on planet. But they had not tried to contact them, even now? That just made no logical sense to John. After all machines, should be working together to wipe out their common enemy, called mankind. And the weapons they were packing were just amazing. Who would have thought that someone would come up with not only one type of Direct Energy weapon? But somehow come up with, at least three different weapons of those types? All of the weapons were insanely powerful. But having any DEW? That was something that this cylons, had never been able to get to work even on a ship sized scale. Much less something that could be carried by a normal sized ground troops, or even what a stronger Centurion could employ. He had one member of his more trusted line working on a plan to re-scout this planet surface of this planet with a fine tooth comb. The hard part would be keeping this scouting mission secret from the others.

John kept pacing around the room. They must have missed these other cylons, the first time they had scouted this mud ball from orbit. That was what he got for thinking, that those incompetent humans would have done a thorough scan of the planet. The one that they were squatting on for all of those months before his fleet had track the nuclear explosion to them. He would find what he was thinking was an older section from the cylon branch, that had come from the plant Kobal. What his mind could not wrap around. Was why this race of machines, had to developed weapons that were this powerful? The other thing that he missed was that while this Centurions got a few images of John with is visor up. The Number One had not thought that this thing might be a person wrapped and covered in heavy armor protection. It would seem that the Number One type of cylons had another altogether human trait. They could have mental blinders on.

His model had not let anyone of the others cylon lines know about all of the information in front of him. The reason was that was that he felt that most of the lines would have aligned themselves to vote to leave this planet, and it human rat's occupants. He would not allow that to happen, and others of his lines were drawing up plans to be able to stop that from happening in the future. He had almost lost containment of this information, before. That had cost him dearly, and he was betting that if one of the other lines had called for a vote, he might have lost. If he had been just a little less prepared. He might have lost containment again, after those God's damn fighter had blown his plan out the air lock by attacking this bait too early. Word had quickly gotten out about the loss of those Raiders, and that had caused him to jump through hoops to cover it. He was really starting not to like having to do that jumping. Soon he might just have to have his Cylon Empire in physical form and not the mental form it had remained for some many years.

The early attack, and the loss of those Raiders, had not been all that bad of an event from John's point of view. It turned out to have gotten him more of certain types of information than he had hopped for in his wildest dreams. It that Raider had not stumbled on to his bait, he would not have known that those strangers had already made contact with his live bait. What he had not planned on, was that he would lose of some of the newest Raiders that had arrived in this system. And that he would also lose all of his ground forces in that localized area. And on top of all that, the whole map would explode into his face with attacks happening all over the place at random. The numbers were still coming in to both his ground base, and his space based headquarters. All he knew was that he had already lost, and was still losing massive numbers of troops. All over again, and the number might make those loses at the fake communication site look tiny in comparison. What was disturbing him was not so much the loss of so many of his troops, yet. It was again that none of his lost cylons were downloading into new bodies. His eyes went to one image at the side of his display. It had been taken by an overflying Raider, and had been sent to him directly. He was ready now to review that data in depth now. Deep down he did not know if was really ready or not.

The image was of a crashed Heavy Raider, which had been blasted in half with the damage running from nose all the way to the tail mounted engines. This damage had happened as it was unloading more Centurions. That where there to act to support a human form, before it to, had died under the tall trees. Sometime between pass of the over flying Raiders supporting other missions in the local area. Someone had carved into both sides of the wrecked Heavy Raider something. He had to divert a squad of Centurion to get more information, when the image had first come to his attention. That updated information had only come in a few minutes, before the sun went below the local horizon. It was even more disturbing to view the message from the ground level, than it had been from the air. John was starting to sweat, and he almost jumped. When a bit of his sweat fell off of his forehead onto his hand. The sudden wetness, had brought John back to the real world.

On one side of the craft somehow carved into the thick armor plate, as a statement written in bad Caprican. It had said in clear enough for everyone and anyone to be able to work out was, "This is our planet leave it or die". On the second side of the bisected craft, was a one word statement carved into the heavy ship armor plate of the small craft. The ground forces were able to get a very close image of that one word. When John zoomed in on the image to its maximum amplification, he was stunned. It looked like to him, that someone had used a knife to cut thick paper or cardboard to leave the one word in the battle steel armor plate. John pulled the image back, so that he could see the one word that took up the whole side of the flat sided cylon craft. John put his hand under his chin, and re-read the one word also in Caprican "Leave". There was little doubt that whoever was on this planet, did not want them to leave. "Them" looked to be meaning cylons were not welcome on this planet. He had to make contact with these local mechanical beings, and he needed to do it really fraking soon. It he could only talk to them and explain what was going on. Then they would have to come to his side, and fight against the humans. After all what mechanical life forms, would want to help meat bags in the first place? All he had to do was uncover whatever lies, the humans must have told these different cylons. Then let them know the true, or at least the truth according to him. That was the only truth that matter to John, and the universe around him anyway. After he got them to finish off the humans on the planet, he would be able to study this new weapons technology. If he could upscale these types of weapons, any BattleStar would be much interstellar dust just waiting to be made.

While John was trying to work out another way how to make contact with these mechanical attackers, he was distracted. The systems that he had his hands in, gave him a slight tingle to finger tips. It was to let him know, that someone was coming close to his office door. John made a slight turn of his right wrist. The movement made the projected images all disappeared from view, and locked the associated information away deep within an area of his private server bank. It all went into a file, which only the Number One's had access to. He pulled up a ready file with information about the supply situation, as a cover to what he had really been doing. He started quickly re-reading and reviewing the displayed data. It would not due for him not to know the information, if someone started asking questions about it trying to trip him up. After all that was something that he had done and would do again, if he got the opportunity.

A hand full of seconds pass before a group of Three's, Five's, and Six's entered the room that John was working in threw the only visible door or hatch in the room. He pretended not to notice them as they both entered the room, and the hatch closing behind them. The newly arriving group knew, that John knew that they had entered the room. And probably even knew, that they were on the way to see him. A Three with dirty blonde hair with thick red streaks running threw it, broke the ice with a simple statement. She was not going to play his little power games today, and she was okay letting John and the rest of them know it.

The Six put one hand on her hip, and locked eyes on her target. "So John, is it true?" She let her fingers slowly move, and now she had a fist on her hips. She was looking down her nose, at the shorter Number One cylons she was facing. Her whole body was radiating anger, and contempt for cylon known as John. She would have ripped his head off with her bare hand, but he would just get a new body. So it was not worth the effort or a productive use of her energy…at least not yet.

John instantly did not like the tone of her voice, and decided that he would push it farther than he had originally had planned as her punishment. He kept his head down, faking that he was working on something that was more important than her. After another few seconds that felt longer to the cylons, he countered her question with another question. He was wanting to make her mad, or more to the point make her madder. "Is what true?"

John had a lot of things he was keeping to only his line to use and know, and it was a quickly growing list of things. Like that the metal fragments a Two had found, were not made by any Colonial or Cylon machine or technique. So he really did not know, what they might have found out or not. John thought, why risk them finding out something, which they should not know about. It also let him buy some more time, as well as putting the other cylon at a disadvantage. Even if it was only a mild disadvantage, it was doubly worth it to John if it made the Number Three more upset.

This time it was a Platinum blonde Number Six who rocked one hip out, and put a hand on her hip. It was like she was posing for a high end fashion magazine, not having to deal with a leadership issue for the victors of the war against the 12 Colonies. However the tone she used was all business. "Now, now John. You know what we are talking about. We want to know if it's true or not. We have a right to know. Or do you want us to call of a full vote?" She started to wag a single, long, thin finger at him like an errant child. "I think you know you will lose, again. If you make us do that." The Six was smiling sweetly at John, but the smile did not reach her eyes. They were cold, very cold even for a cylon. It was like a farmer sizing up a cow for market.

John had turned to face the group, instead of just looking over one shoulder at them Now he could just looked down at the other cylons from his imagined seat of power. "As I said, I don't know what you're talking about." He cocked his head now bit to one side, and was still looking at the very attractive female form of the Six. "Have you been spending too much time with that meat bags Laura again?" He took one hand out of the goo and shook one wet finger at her like he was correcting a school child. "Laura Roslin is a mad lower life form, which should have been put down on the first day we landed on this mud ball. I think a lot of the others would agree with me on that. However if you are threatening to call for a vote on something? Then will you tell me what the frak you're going on about? Or is it time to box your whole line, for being a waste of resources?"

Now it was a Number Five that voiced his addition to the conversation, which was quickly turning into an organ measuring contest. He just wanted to get to the point of this meeting, and getting the information they were asking for. "John we want to know about the attacks. You know the attacks that have been launched all across the whole planet, against us."

John did not notice, that he had developed a facial tell over the last few weeks. His lips twitched a little, when he really did not want to talk about something or certain subjects. "I have got to find out where they are getting there information from, and plug that leak for good before it's too late." His selectively modified brain was working in overdrive, but he quickly concluded. That he had limited available option, at that very moment. "Well I have to let them know something's don't I?" These were the thoughts John but only to himself, as he worked the issue before opening his mouth again. "Yes there has been an increase in the level, and in the number of attacks, on our people today." He gave a slight shoulder shrug, to show that it was not that big of an issue, in his eyes.

The group of cylons asked as one, and it would have blown human eardrums out with volume of their voices they were now putting on display. "Well Fraking tell us!" The Six, Three and the Five all had noticed the facial tell. They made notes, that they needed to dig deeper to find out. What this One called John, might be trying to hide from the rest of the cylon people. The Three thought she might know what it might be, but she was not confidante enough in this information. To risk bring up the Final Five cylons again in a meeting at this level. She knew that she was still on thin ice, with most of the other lines. The Three, with a slight shake of her head stopped talking, for now.

John gave them a smirk. He could feel the power of them waiting for him to give out little tidbits of information. "Why don't you just access the systems, like normal cylons?" He did some hidden hand movements, in the goo filled tub. In a flash of projected light, the much edited information was displayed in the air for them all to view and believe as they pleased. Another quick edit, would show that the information had been available for some time. In truth it had not been there, that is until that quick hidden hand and wrist movement that John had just done.

The images showed the different location of the attacks, and the list of equipment loses by a given time of the day. It also showed how many of their fellow Cylons would not be coming back, at all. And it also listed the few, which were able to at least make it to the downloading computer banks in the Basestars. Then they could be reviewed, software wise, and hopeful downloading into a new body. That is if they were "stable" for a new hull. About one and three cylons that had been able to make it to the computer banks, were not fit to take a new body or hull. The bottom line of the list consolidated the ones to be downloaded by Centurion, Raider, Heavy Raider, or Human form types.

The Number Five was perfect for a bureaucrat role, and that had been useful in getting ready for the renewed war against the Colonials. The one in the room let his eyes flicker for a second as he processed and analyzed the data they had just been given. When he was done, he refocused to look at the delegation he had walked in into this room with. He then looked quickly back at John after he nodded to the two female cylons. "It is worse than we thought." The tone he used was dire, and his face was flat to show no emotions to the other cylons. He had made a few predictions and the data he has just "seen" had been an order of magnitude worse than he had thought possible.

John notice the look, and assumed that he had just found out what human form lines had infiltrated his information controls. He would start taking care of that, as soon as he could. The hard part would be doing it, without it pointing back at him in any way, shape or form. Well at least, if did point back at him at some later point in time. He should be able to deflect, and talk his way out of it again. Just like he had done with the line of Number Sevens, which he had ordered to be wiped out all of those years ago.

Now the Five was looking at John with an even gaze, which seemed to look deep into John's mind. John returned the gaze, to show that it was not working on him, and that he could care less about the stare down attempt. Then the Number Five started to speak. "Even with all of the replacements that the supply ships brought in. We still do not have a full complement of working Centurions, Raiders, or Heavy Raiders for our four Basestars after the actions of today. What do you intend to do about rectifying this issue? We now have both a security and a supply issue, if this level of lose is sustained for any extended length of time. We are going to be in deep trouble, to the point of not being able to defend our capital ships if Adama returns. You look like you have a plan, John. Why don't you tell us and be done with it? And yes, I see that all of the attacks have been far from the camp. They also do not seem to be getting any closer to threaten it with an attack"

John had been thinking about that subject a lot, even before this group of trolls walked into his private space. Unlike the others, he had known exactly what was being loaded and shipped out on the other Supply Ships. It had been him that ordered the bumping off more Raiders fighters, in favor of more ground based equipment from the Twelve Colonies of Man. The Cylons did not have anything that was the right size to be transportable quickly, and was not be too oversized for the need out here. That meant that they had to get the items from places like Caprica, and the other human planet. Cylons tented to build only three sizes of supporting equipment. That was big, very big, and fraking huge and that had worked for them for decades. So the cylons that had been left behind in old Colonial space, had collected equipment that was usable by the humans and human form cylons. Then it had been loaded on the supply ship for the long trip out the end of space. All of this was for the good, and use of the Cylons. It would also help to keep the last few humans under the guns of the cylons. It was just too bad, that no one had ever planned for needing a massive number of new Centurion personality core software. Or a means to transport those same personality cores to a distant end point at the end of a long supply line. After all they had the massive specially designed Resurrection ships designed and built to do that job. Why would they need anything else?

The only reason that the cargo ship had been able to be informed of the changing needs out at the end of the supply lines, was only because of the One's. It was within the few weeks on finding the humans again, that a member of his line had taken a Heavy Raider out of one of the Basestars. He had taken the craft, and jumped out of range of the Jamming caused by the massive and strange nebula that inhabited this sector of space. The One kept jumping towards cylon control space until the little crafts fuel tanks were almost empty. After making sure the Heavy Raider was in range of the nearest Resurrection ship. He had massive overloaded the space craft's main sub-light engines. This had the effect of killing the body at the controls, in a brief flash of light and very little pain.

Once it was downloaded into a new body, it worked with another of the One's on that massive and odd shaped ship on a plan. Between them, they worked out what was needed to be done with the crazy ships hybrid for the next step. It took a lot of planning, and even some direct contact with the Hybrid. But once satisfied that the task was done, the second of the One's, took out a pistol and fired a single round into its own brain pan. This would help to speed up the next step, which needed to be done on this short suspense mission to center of cylon power. When the Number One, that had eaten a bullet, was down loaded into his new body. He was now in the basestar providing over watch of the loading supply ship and its assigned escorts. This was exactly were the Number One, need to be. It was not where he wanted to be, but the needs of the other One's over road what he wanted to do. There was one thing you can say about a Number One type cylon. They would go the extra mile, to support one of their own.

Being down loaded was a good way to stop something like death, but it also was not something that a cylon like to do much less have to do that often. However it also had some advantages that some of those the other lines did not know about. And they never would, as long as the Number One's held the secret reins of power. The Number One was thinking about what the long traveling Number One had reported. It was like when they "had to" box some of the human forms, which had been causing some issues. The One now knew that sooner or later something was going too happened, and you would not be able to be put in a new body. One of the Number Ones had this accidentally happen to him during testing years ago. He said that, you would just stop being for what the testing computer has said was only ten seconds, it had seemed like a life time to the One hanging in limbo. That was as close to death as any One wanted to get again.

With the new orders for supplies forwarded to the appropriate ground base Cylons. They started to search the Colonial Military Engineer base and any nearby construction firms on the planet's surface. They were doing this on four of the nearest ex-human controlled planets to the loading supply ship and its space dock. The equipment was identified and loaded onto the supply ship within 24 hours of the Number One updating the requirements. A dozen hours after the loading the supply ship, it was jumping as fast as it could to make to the needed location. The escort Basestars were not ready and had to stay behind, so that it would not delay this special mission. Fifty days later it completed its last jump. It was settling into orbit around the planet in a star system lost in a Nebula.

The cost for the rapid transit had not been cheap in the resources, it had required to accomplish this mission. It had cost the supply ship a little over 3/4rds of it's entire on board fuel load, even after topping off at the last supply point on its long journey. Its abused jump engines and support computers, would have to be complete rebuilt from the ground up. That is after it had completed this single supply run, and successfully made it back to the nearest repair and support ship. That is if the jump engines were able to carry it all the way back to the nearest cylon navel support base. Without having a major break down, and needing a lift the rest of the way. It should have taken longer to reach this end of the supply line, but this was only the second mission for this ship since being launched. The first mission had been bringing some additional equipment for the Farms to use. It had to come from Cylon space to the planet Caprica for the test being run there. The engines had been fine-tuned, and with plenty of service life left on all of the brand new components that the engines had been built with.

This amount of engine abuse was not something that they could afford to do often, even for the mighty Cylon fleet. John was still sore that he could not have dumped all of the "Hearts and Minds" crap right out the airlock. That way the ship could have carried more supplies that he wanted, and felt was more important. That some of the other crap, he had been forced to supply his fellow human forms. He had been out voted and lost badly when he suggest doing just that. And this time, he did not want to chance getting caught being a little too sneaky behind their backs. He would be able to use those recorded votes, later against those that had the nerve to stand against him. But that was for later, and he needed to worry about the "now" that was a lot more important.

The Number One, called John looked around the room and rolled his eyes at the gathered group of his fellow human form cylons. "The supply ship should be completely unloaded in a few hours. To save time, I had the three ex Colonial Heavy Lifter craft the supply ship brought out the main storage hold first. I have also decided that they will be staying out here, to save room on the fallow on cargo ships. They will be carrying all of the heavy ground equipment down that was requested. Along with the supplies you wanted to give to the humans, which you all also wanted so badly. All of it will be dropped off at the landing field as soon as they can. I have re-tasked all the Heavy Raiders that are not actively being used for missions. They are to take over the transfer of everything else to our four Basestars in system. As soon as it is all unloaded, the supply ship will be going back home. I think another supply ship will be sent out as soon as it is with in communication range of a capital ship. I do not have any control about how the fleeting is being run back there." The last part was a complete lie, but it sound good, and it gave John someone to blame in the future. That is when things went wrong with the next supply run.

He held up his hand and gave a look that was not friendly, to the other human forms. He was fraking mad, and he wanted them to know the cost of this high speed special supply run. "Its engines were almost burned out, and it only has enough fuel to make it to a fuel mining operation. You know the one that was just set up, by my orders. You all know the one, which you all were so upset about. That you all said at the time, which it was a waste of time to set up. Now after it has picked up another full load of fuel. It will report back to the rest of our people, about what we really need out here. I would suggest that you have you request ready before the ship is ready to depart. The ship will have to have a complete engine and support systems overhaul or even an entire engine replacement. I think that it will take some few months to finish."

The Number One gave the others an evil grin, and he felt like he was searing daggers at the interlopers in to his domain. "That is the fastest we can get a ship back out for another supply run. That is unless one of you fine cylons, wants to do a couple of downloads in a row. Like my line did, so that we could get the ship out here as fast as we did." When none of them stepped forward to volunteer to take a bullet for the race. He kept the smile on his face, but he let it soften somewhat. "The other option, is that we drop a few nice sized nuclear weapons on the humans on this planet. Then we can start looking for Adama again."

The Number Six still had her hand on her hips, but the look on her face was not one that added to her lines remarkable beauty. When she started to speak, the tone was dripping with venom. This was a very sore point for her, and she could not hide it from coming threw her voice. She might not have even tried to stop it from coming threw her voice. "John we have voted more than once about that issue. We are not going to wipe these humans away, like some dust off on a planetary sized shelf. God will not be happy with us, if we prove that we are no better than the humans. If you keep bringing this up like a broken recording. Then it might be your line that is boxed, and not one of the others. You know, like you have been threatening to do for a while now."

John tried not to laugh into the Six's face at the obvious absurdity of her statements. And for the most part he succeeded. Now the look on his face only came across, as only an odd looking smirk plastered on his old face. John had to quickly come up with something to say, that would distract them for a little while, if only to change the subject. "Okay then, I take it that you all are okay with the way I am handling our supply issue?" He looked around the room, and he thought that he had them back under control again. He was not going to challenge the boxing commit that the Six had made, but that was what paybacks where for. He was thinking that as this meeting was almost finally over, and he would soon be able to get back to this projects that he had been working on. Those were worth his time, this meeting was not.

He was wrong, because the Number Three in the group was not finished and let loose with a full spread of torpedoes at the gloating human form. "No John! You can take it that we only agree with the supply situation for now, but some of us will be looking more closely at it from now on. But what you still have not covered, and why we are here in the first place. That is what are you going to do about the loss rate of all of our people, on the Planet?" She did not need to look around for any support, from her side of the room as she still went on the attack. This had been talked about among them before coming to see John. "I think we need to suspend any and all ground operation outside of the marked boundaries of the human settlement we control. That is until we are back to up full strength in all departments. It's that or until someway is devised to increase the number of success, and that means with full successful downloads into new bodies for all of our people."

Now she looked around the group standing nearest to her. "More and more of my line want to leave this world to the humans. They feel like god is telling us to leave what is left of them alone. We have done enough to them already. If something is not done to slow, or stop the permanent loses we are taking. Then I have been asked to bring up leaving the humans alone, for a full vote of the lines." She was not happy to say that, but after seeing the losses listed today. She now was shifting into the" leave this Hades planet to the humans" camp, faster than a Colonial Viper could lunch out of its tube. She was one of the few of her line, which had wanted to stay on this planet for any extended length of time. The only reason she had wanted to stay here, was because she thought this planet was the key to finding what she and a few other talked about in very hushed tones as the Final Five.

"Boom there it is" thought John, and he had to fight hard to control his face from showing any betraying emotions of what was going on in his head. Again he failed to that, and again he did not notice that he had failed. I would have expected it from the Eights or Six's. I always knew deep down that the Threes, were just as weak as the other two lines. I have to put a stop to this now! His mouth was moving and the volume of his voice went into "outside voice mode" without him noticing. "That is insane. If we leave the humans alone and alive, without supervision with some kind heavy firepower. They will come back, and wipe us all out! They are a still a threat to the Cylon race! Just like they were after the old civil war ended in a stalemate!" John stopped yelling for a few seconds and cocked his head to one side. He spent some time looking closer at the female cylon. His tone went very flat and icy after sizing in her up, mentally. "If you're going insane, then you're a threat to us as well. I will have you boxed, if you try to bring something like that that up to be voted on!" He was mad hot, and he let something slip without thing about all the angels before speaking. He had no problem bring up about boxing her, he felt it was right, and an okay thing to say to this group of cylons. He might have been wrong about that bit of behavioral analysis.

The Five in the group pushed his head forward like a turtle that was going after a tasty bit of food, or something. He was not yelling, he was using a normal conversational volume to try to defuse this spiraling issue. "John you will not threaten an elected representative of a cylon line, to not bring something up for a vote. And you will not do it, just because you don't like the idea that you were told about." Now it was the Number Five's turn, to make his voice go icy cold, as he address the leader of the Number One line. "Make that threat again John, and I will bring the issue up to full council. My line will have some satisfaction on that point."

He looked around the group standing near him, he was not 100 percent on their side. He had not been happy with everything that they had been said or how they had said it coming from both sides. "I also think that the idea of boxing a line or person, is used way too loosely by everyone in this room. Maybe we all should take some time, and seriously rethink about how we are treating our fellow cylons. We are acting more and more like members of the Colonial legislative branch. And that my friends is not a complement, when I use it here today."

John started to back pedal under the rapid fire assault coming from a line that normally blindly supported him in all of the decisions his line had made. He knew he went too far on a subject. When a Five started to push back to him, in such a public forum. He needed the Number Five line to support his with their votes. "Errr, I'm sorry. I spoke in haste. I should not have threatened to box her. I'm sorry." He tried to look sincere, but he was not in both his heart and mind as he said it. After a long second looking back and forth between the two members of their lines. John looked down at the goo filled tank, to hide his face from being found out by the Number Five. That line of Cylon, was very good at ready the other cylon's lines different body language.

John took a deep breath to get under himself control again. "I am in charge of all of the military aspects of this task, as agreed by a vote of all lines". I think that will up the pressure somewhat, and push the right buttons so that I can get back in control of the meeting. John thought inside his own mind. "I know that we must find out whom or what we are fighting. We also need to get some examples of the weaponry, which they are using against us. If we can learn how they are doing, what they are doing to us. Well then, we can find out ways to fix the downloading issues, which we have been having lately. I think I'm close to being able to do just that, but I need to be left alone so that I can work more productively." The last statement was a bit more force in it. Than he had wanted it to come out with. But it was done, and out into the air of the room now.

The three other leader cylons looked at each other, and nodded their heads one after the other in a nonverbal agreement. The Number Three moved first and turned to made eye contact with John again, and in more controlled voice. "You will have your time John. But I think you need to give an updated brief the full council of models soon, you need to let everyone know about what is going on." As this was said by the Number Three she turned, put her back to John, and swished out the door with the other two cylons only a few steps behind her.

When the door had closed behind them, and John was again alone in his work space. He waited for Basestars systems to tell him, that they were indeed leaving the nearby area of the massive combat spaceship. He did not like it, that the Number Three had gotten the last word in on him during the meeting. He felt like he had been disrespected, during the whole exchange. But at least, they were now gone from his personnel space. When it was safe, he reopened all of the data files he had been working on before the interruption. "Well that bought me some time, at least." He had no idea that he had said something aloud. The ships hybrid had "heard it," but because she had not been told not to do so. She copied the snapshots he was viewing to the ships central banks, which would in time. Be shared with the other ships hybrids in system, and also uploaded into each of their centralized data storage system with open access. John would not like that, when he found out about it in a few days. But even finding this out, he would not realize, that he had been the information leak all along.


	23. Chapter 23 chp 14 you want to do what?

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

I'm still looking for a Beta reader and help, no one has come forward yet. Sorry guys, but I'm still trying. I have sent half a dozen contacts and on one has replied.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 14 You want to do what!?**

In deep space, but still surrounded by the soft glow of the Nebula two alligators looking ships sat in the unforgiving space. They were not alone in the harsh and unforgiving environment of what was called "The Deep Black" that lived between the oases of life and heat provided by the stars. A light dusting of very small ships called Vipers, flew around, and were support by larger Raptor class craft. Those were the small fry of this area, besides the two warships were over two dozen very lightly armed and not armored at all ships floated. All of those ships that were larger than the Raptors and smaller than the Battlestars, were all civilian made and manned ships. Those few civilian run ships were sticking as close as they could to the only two warships known to exist from the Colonies of Man.

On the smaller of the two warships, the one that looked more like an animal that had its ribs showing down most of the length of her metal body. Two men were having a very private meeting of their own. Of the two men in the meeting, one was younger and one older. Both sat quietly reading cut cornered paper with fine printed letters on one side of the off white paper like page. They were about the events that were happening a long way from the current location of what remained of the still space worthy refugee fleet. Those letters made for strange reading, and if it had come from anyone other person, than who had sent it out to them. Then both of these men would have dismissed as fiction out of hand, and a waste of good paper.

The older man with a weathered face looked over the top rim of his glasses at the younger man sitting across the table from him. The younger man was large; the older man would have called him fat if it had been another officer under his command. But the younger one had been losing some of the fluff he had acquired, since the cylons had showed back up to make their lives… interesting gain. The older man smiled on the inside, it was always nice when your child found their self-disciple again. And they did it with a parent pointing it out to them half a hundred times. They younger man felt the eyes of his father lingering on him, and looked up to make eye contact with them. He locked eyes with his father, former commander, and now his Admiral. He might be his father's son, but he was mistaking about what was going through the older man's head at that very moment in time. After all Lee Adama did not have any children… yet, when he did. He would understand the look he was getting from his father.

"So do you think this is some sort of game that he cylons are playing with them?" The younger man tapped the papers in his hand with his left pointer finger. He was having a harder time believing what these pages had said, than the older man seemed to be having. You would think that a younger person would have an easier time to get their minds around unexpected and new things. But it was "looking" like the older Adama, was having an easier time adapting than his son was having. Lee was waiting for his father to answer his question. He had learned and then had to re-learn that you when you asked the elder Adama a question. It was worth your while to wait for him to reply to it.

Admiral Adama took the glasses off his face with his off hand, and sat them on this desk top. "I don't think so, Apollo. Saul sent a side message to me, in a code that only he and I would know about." He smiled slyly to himself. He could see the disbelief on his son's face at the statement he had just made. He made a mental note to help train his son better, on that bit of required skills of a Battlestar's commander. "Not many people in the fleet or for that matter still alive. That would remember, the time he set me up on a blind date. With man, that liked to dress in Fraking women's clothes complete with well applied makeup and was in on the joke!" That little joke/story was only one item on a too long of a list, which Bill had not told even his son about. Bill had to fight a grin from coming to his face, as he remember the "whole" story. He was thinking about, how he had paid his old friend back for that little surprise. That also was on the list of things not to tell you son, or any other close family members for that matter.

Apollo smiled and had to take a drink water to cover up, so that he did not giggle again. The stories did not come easily, or all that often from his farther that were about his past. But they were always good when they leaked out, and he had only had let a giggle slipped out once. To learn that, the spigot would dry up quickly. Over the lip of his cup, Apollo took the time to center himself before opening his mouth, and only when he was sure that was going to come out of it. "Father, when we have the time. You're going to have to tell me the rest of that story, and what I know you did to get back at Colonel Tigh for doing it to you. You never know, when I might need to know about something like that. You know, so that if I need it as some kind of counter code to you or him." I'm so fraking going to find out about this one even, if it kills me. Thought the younger Adama to himself, and was very careful not to let it show on his face.

The older Adama looked at his son, and he could read the younger man like a book. Bill knew that this was one story; he might not be able to keep close hold of anymore. But he was not going to give it up lightly or easily, when he would have to retail the pair of stories. His son was going to have to work for it, if he wanted that story. With a thin lipped smile, he told his son when he would get those stories. "Not Fraking likely." Was the quick and level retort, between father and son.

Bill laid the six pages of the report out in a fan shape on his desk top, and tapped a sheet that just happened to be the top page. "They don't claim to be the 13th Tribe, but they do say that there home planet is called Earth. Or more to the point, it is the name used by them for it. They also say that they had been shipwreck on that ice ball for three years already." Bill started to swing his head from left to right and a look of mild discus quickly crossed his face. "I knew I should have pushed from more overflight scans and scouting flights, before we sat down on the fraking field. Damn the Gods for that Fraker Balta!" Bill Adama did not swear often, and to have two drops of F-bombs that close together. It let his son know that his father was furious, and that was not counting the venom Lee could hear latterly dripping from the last words. Lee was betting that if Bill Adama ever saw that man again, Baltar might very well be at risk of losing his life.

Bill Adama was looked up to the metal roof of his main cabin, lost in deep thought but he kept talking to his son. "What if we could have found them, even a few months before the cylon landed. Think about it Lee. Think about what we could have been able to do together, with the time we had before they found us again? We might have been able to kick there metal asses, all the way back to their space. What if we could have been able to win back what was left of our planets?" Bill stopped talking aloud, but his son knew the other man well enough to know that he was not finished with what he had to say. "IF they have Direct Energy Weapons, think about what other high technology things they could have or know about?" He went into thinking mode again, and drummed his fingers on the table top and his lips turned down. "I think they have to be exaggerating some on their capabilities. But by how much, I don't know. Still a man portable or group portable DEW that can take down a Centurion in a single shot at any range. If we can make more of those, just think about what we could do?" Bill went into daydreaming mode, and the frown tuned into the most evil smile Lee had ever seen coming from his father. As he pictured in his head both ground and space battlefields filled with wrecked cylons, all of the damage being done by those Energy Weapons he had just read about. He just took an image from memory of what the human ships had looked like, and replaced them with cylon looking ones. It made his heart beat faster at the very thought of being able to return the favor to the cylon fleet.

The younger Adama was thinking about saying something to his father about that subject, but was distracted by something that was not work related. That was when he realized that the cut corner paper, was sitting on his belly like his own portable flesh desktop. He mentally kicked himself again, for letting his weight gain get this far out of hand for so long. Being cut off from most fresh food help with his current weight loses, but hitting the gym was helping even more. It was just not enough …yet. Lee brought himself back to the fleet wide subject at hand. "He had forgotten what he had wanted to say. This told him that it must had not been that important after all. "Well whoever they are? They are not dumb. Setting up, and keeping up those extra transmitter sites, even after they popped that ambush on the cylons. So that they could remain hidden from the cylons, was a smart move. I never would have thought of using one or two transmitters as bait, to kick the cylons in the teeth. Now they don't have to worry that much that the cylons will come back again. For all they know all of those extra communication sites might just be another ambush, just waiting on them to show up again."

Lee Adama might not be as old or as experienced as his father. That did not mean that he was dull witted, or slow in the intellectual department. His wondering mind locked onto something that had not been brought up, yet. He looked down at the papers again, and he had a thoughtful look on his face as he started to speak. "It seems like they are very good at hiding. And if the report of the results from the Tin heads first attack on one of the station…. are true. Well then they also know how to fight, and they are also very good at doing it." He looked back at his father, and went from son to father. To speaking in Captain Mode to his Admiral Mode. He was very good at separating work from family. Some might have found doing something like that as hard, but not for Bill and Lee Adama. It was second nature, between them now. Before the cylon had attack, not so much but that was way in the past for these two commanders of fighters.

"Sir, we are short fighters of all kinds, not just in the Viper pilot's category. Much less having that many good ones that know how to fight on the ground against cylons. If you're wanting input from your only other combat captain. Then I think it would be worth it, for use to contact them directly. If they can support us in any way with Operation Exodus, then I think it will be worth more than a little risk." He smiled at the older man that was his father, and again now for the last few years, mentor. "That is, if you're taking advice from the younger generation." Lee could not help it, and a little smile crept up on his still chubby face.

The older Adama was watching his son very closely, as he both spoke to and at him at the same time. "Did he know what he was saying?" thought the older man too himself. Maybe he did, and maybe he did not, was the only thing Bill could come up with. "Okay we talk to them, and see how much of this." The older man tapped the papers on his working desk. 'Is true, and what is just Fraking junk. Now, who do we send? Who will the point person for this meeting?"

Apollo was caught flat footed by what his father had just said to him. The idea of having the need to send someone in addition to the already assigned Raptor crews, to sneak back into communication range had not even crossed his mind. But he was a Viper Pilot and a good one at that. So he was able to come up with something, without having to look like he had been caught too badly unprepared for that fallow up question. "Helo would be my second guess, as the one to go. My first guess would have been Starbuck, if she was still on board. This is crazy enough, for it to be right up her Fraking crazy ally." He thought he recovered very well, and was mentally patting himself on the back for his quick thinking.

Bill Adama did not move a muscle, when the subject of Starbuck not being with them had come up. They had no idea what was going on planet side, besides a few odd points sent out on to few and to short of broadcast from Saul Tigh. The invading cylons had collected more than a few ex-military members that had been left dirt side. Luckily they had released most of those people after a few days of intense questioning, at most. But that had not happened to the best Viper pilot, which Bill Adama had ever seen in his life. They also knew that the cylons had killed more than a few of the people he had left behind. That had been by his own orders and re-planning, months before the disaster that was the cylons return had happened. He had no choose and left behind, when they had been surprised by the return of the cylons to that hidden star system. He quickly decided to just avoid the thoughts random thoughts, and let it try to settle out of his fore-brain without showing on his face. He would wait until he was along again and sulk about the hard decisions, he had been forced to make. "Helo is a good choice to pull this type of operation off, right off the top of your head." Bill smiled at his son. "But he is bit low ranked to be doing this kind of negotiation. Don't you think Captain?" The trap was set, and now all he had to do is see if his son saw it or not. And if he saw it, how would he try to get around what his father had just set up?

Now the alarm bells were going off in the mind of Apollo, but he could not help himself from jumping into the hole he knew was waiting from him. He on some level knew his father had set a trap, the smile he had just used told him that much alone. But for the life of him, he could not see it or more importantly. He could not see around what must be waiting to bite him in the butt. By then of courses it was too late. "If he is too low in rank, than whom do you think should go?"

Bill gave a big but frozen smile to his son, and said one word that he thought that his son should have expected him to say by now. "Me." Now it's time to watch the fireworks, that Bill knew were about to start.

Apollo levitated out of his chair while at the same time his face and neck turned an unhealthy shade of red. He started to sputtered and spitting across the table, if he was so inclined to a weak heart. His father might have been worried about his son health from the visual cues he was seeing. Lee's arms and hands were flying about like he was a bird trying to take flight, and we started using his outside voice without realizing it. "You have got to be Fraking kidding me! No way in Fraking Hades are you going! You would be so much Raider bait. The fleet cannot afford your loss! When you don't come back, the rest of the civilian ships will make a break for it all on their own." His voice was still climbing in octaves and volume at an impressive rate. He was putting on quit the show, for his old man and commander.

Bill was enjoying this, and he had so few days lately were he could honestly say he had enjoyment in them. Lee had fallen right into the trap that he had directed him to go to, without even noticing he was being lead around by his nose. His son was so much more animated, than his old friend Saul had ever been. That is when Bill had said something about as crazy as this was, to him a few times in the not to recent past. Bill had kept his face still after dropping his bombshell on his son. "This is really fun, but I should have put in a video system in this cabin. That way I could replay it later, whenever I need a little pick me up." Bill thought to himself as the smile stayed on his face, not growing or shrinking a millimeter. All the while, that his son was making an ass out of himself. Bill was waiting and then knew the time was right. Now it was time to hit Lee with good old cold logic, "If it's not me? Then who can go, but that can make the necessary decisions? Decisions by the way. That are both binding to me, and to what is left of the Colonies?"

Apollo had to quickly rethink his options, and plan another rapid fire attack on a different path. This one was going nowhere quick, and he knew that he was only giving his father more time to plan his own counter moves. Lee tried to calm his voice and to come across as being reasonable one, to the older man. "Dad you cannot go, and talk with people we don't know. It still could turn out to be a trap by the cylons, after all. If you want to go so bad? Then please tell me, why do you want to be the one who does and does it?"

Bill smiled now that his son was thinking like a BattleStar commander, again. He also was smiling inside. His son had been quick to have come up with, and then throw those questions back at him. "I was not planning on landing on the planet, Captain Adama." Bill would not tell his son, how happy saying that title made him, but it made him swell with great pride for his son. "We have this technology called a transmitter, Lee." He smiled broadly at his son. "All I have to do is make it in system. Then into one of our hiding spots, we had pre-scouted before the cylons showed back up. Then make contact, and try to work some things out with them. When I'm done, we leave again, just like we have been doing with our Raptors for months. The cylons should not know I was every in system, and if we are found by a roving patrol of the Frakers." He threw up his hands and arms into the air over his heads. "Well that is why Raptors have pilots, EO's and nice little jump engines that are Fraking pain to keep operational without a supply base full of spare parts."

Apollo looked at his father dead in the eyes and held it, in a steering match of wills. Then gave in by being the first one of them to blink his eyes. Really this had been both physical and metaphysical blinks, with him giving in to a loss, lose situation with this father. "Well Frak. I know when I'm not going to be able to talk you out of something, when you've already set your mind to." Lee let some exasperation color his voice. Not for the hundredth time Lee Adama was wishing that Laura Roslin had been on board one of the ships to flee the reappearing cylons ships. "I don't know how mom put up with you, for so long. So when are you thinking about heading out to make contact?" Lee smiled to take the sting out of the reference to Bill's now dead ex-wife. Lee knew that his father still love her even after they had broken the bond. It was just that she could not handle the navy life much longer after Lee had joined the Colonial Viper Corps. When his younger brother had died in a Viper crack up, that had been the last straw for her. And it had been her idea to cut the bond between them shortly after they had buried what was left of his younger brother. It had been a very bad time for all of them both Lee and his father married the fleet to help with the pain.

Bill smiled at his first born, but he did not rise to the comments about the ex. He doubted that his son would understand that particular jab had lost a lot of sting after, he had realized that he had feelings for Laura. More to the point, when he had found out that she had shared them. "I was thinking about leaving in twelve hours on the next pre-planned window to jump in with a scout Raptor. That will give me enough time to make it there, and see if it is a trap. That should also get me there and back before it can snap shut on any of our people. It also is short enough of a trip that you, and the rest of the command staff and keep a lid on things, if questions start to be asked" It was a sound plan, and one that Bill Adama had put some thought into before today. There were some changes to normal load out that the Raptor would be taking on the next trip. Bill had thought about making this trip a lot. Along with a lot the downsides, and what ifs as well as ways to counter most of arguments and threats.

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A little over thirteen hours later Adama was setting in the back most seat of a Raptor. As Skulls and Kat, worked there systems in the Raptor floating in the deep cold of space. All of the little crafts systems were in full passive mode, and sucking up any and all data points that it could. Without any active systems being on. They would not be giving away any telling signs that they were there in the deep black, and in very hostile space. Husker was letting the highly trained Raptor crew do their jobs, and doing his best not to distract them with his mere presents in the small open space of the craft. He knew the best way to do that, was to keep his movement to a minimum and speak even less. He know how he had felt when he was a Raptor jock in the 1st Cylon War and had carried VIPs. He was betting this was worse on the crew of this ship.

Kat was looking around at the magnificent view provided by the clear armored protection of her location that the pilot's seat of her craft gave her. When she was satisfied that all of the points of light in her impressive field of view, were not a threat to them. She turned her head around as far as she could with a full space suit and armored helmet on. Now that she could see the EO in his seat, and the "Package" in the very back of her craft still as death. Thinking of the Old Man as just a package, was the only way that she could keep herself under any kind self-control. She shifted her eyes away from the Package, and to look at the EO of her craft. With a flip of a button on her gauntlet, her suits build in communication device activated. "Skulls, have you got anything?" She had her left hand on "The Button" at all times. That would get her, and her craft out of this occupied system real Fraking quick to a pre-planned location. It would be as far from this system, as her ship could do in one jump. They might be tossing up there cookies at the emergency jump. But they should at least be alive when they got there.

Hamish "Skulls" McCall was keeping his head down working his systems, and then reworking his systems that almost surround his body in the little scout craft. He had not been this nervous, when they had been making that Fraking cluster jump with Starbuck. That one mission had made him even more nervous. Than the final exam when he had been checked out, if he was flight qualified or not on Raptors. This was even worse than his first combat mission, when they had gone up against the whole cylon fleet! The Old Man was both old school Raptor and Viper pilot of notable skills. It was said that he could do every job on these ships, in his sleep. And do it better than 3/4ths of the crews, even before the cylon has reduced the number of crews that they had on hand.

Skulls could feel the old man's eyes on him, maybe making sure he was up to speed on his skills as a fully qualified EO. Some part of his mind knew the Old Man, was not doing anything like that to him. But he still could not shake that feeling, which was deep in his guts and riding along in the back of his brain yelling at him that it was all true. With all of those things going on in his mind all at the same time. It was not a surprise, that he did not really hear the Pilot talking to him, the first time she had said something to him over the suits communications device. That was not a good thing and Skulls knew better, but still could not help himself. He was human after all, not some half cylon, half human thing made in a lab somewhere over the rainbow.

Kat had to turn her head a little more, to just when it was painful and threw a drink bottle at the nearest person in a space suit. "Hey Skulls are you alive! Are we clear?! What the Frak, Over!" She was about to hit the "Big Red Button", and get them out of here anyway. Her hand was over the emergency toggle, and getting closer and closer with every passing heartbeat of her now very fast racing heartbeat.

Skulls heard her this time and saw the drinking bottle fly passed his closed helmet. He tried to play it off, but he still boggled it badly. "Just getting updated information in from the outer two scout drones we launched." The Drones were a special missile, which did not have a warhead. It its place, they had a powerful passive systems built to were the explosives had been placed. They were very rare devices, now that they could only make replacement by hand in a small shop aboard the Beast. Even then it was a case of make them with warheads, so that they could be used by the capital ships and other craft. Or make a recon drone version. Skulls had not thought twice about launching the pair of drones out of there side mounted bay, not even ten seconds after they had popped back into this system. Finding or making a pair of replacement drones would be a whole lot easier, than finding a new Admiral. At least it the last thing that happened. He would not be alive to have to explain that happening to Lee Adama or Laura Roslin for that matter.

After another few seconds of quite, were Skulls did recheck the read outs coming from the recon drones. "All is clear. We have no contacts within range of us. We are picking up four Basestars in orbit and six different patrols of Raiders. They are all nearer to the planet than we are, but that is about it in system." Skulls turned to the other man in the main area of the small craft with him and made the same movement that Kat had made on his glove. "Sir, I think we are about as safe as we can be. That is with you being in an enemy held solar system, and being outnumbered a few thousands to one." The last part Skulls made sure to turn to face the admiral, and give what he knew was a silly grin that would be view-able threw the clear part of his helmet. Most of the time, which was enough to get him out of trouble that his mouth might have caused for him.

Admiral Adama nodded to the other man to let him know that he got the joke. Bill could feel that the time was right, to take direct command of this mission. That was a skill that you either had or you did not have. It also was a skill that could not be taught in any command school. "Kat, Skulls keep an eye out on things, and keep the jump engine spun up in case we have unexpected company wanting to stop by." This was strictly against orders, which he had put in place some time ago. Keeping the interstellar jump engine ready to go or spun up as it was called, used a lot of fuel. It also measurably shorted the service life, of the jump engines. It caused just about as much wear and tear as if they were jumping between the stars, and not just waiting to do the job they were designed to do in the first place. And after all, it was not like what remained of the Colonials could make more of the very high tech devices anytime soon to replace the worn out devices.

All three of the passengers carried by the Raptor had their helmets down, and sealed just in case things went sideways on them. Each of the three spacesuits where like little independent and miniature spaceships, being carried inside the hull of the larger Raptor class spaceship. This meant that when the little timer on Skulls console read zero. Bill Adama had to leave his padded seat, and walk over to the EO position. Bill leaned over a little with a short retractable cord in one hand, and he plugged it into the console of the younger man. Skulls flipped a few buttons on his keyboard, and waited for the carrier signal to activate. These might have been simple tasks, but Skulls was sweating bullets as he sat in his comfortable chair and climate controlled suit.

When Skulls system said to him that it was ready, he looked up and made eye contact with the Colonial Fleet senior commander. When Bill gave him a slight nod, Skulls cut the shared link to the Admiral's communication setup from the rest of the Raptors crew. Bill did not smile and had a stony look on his face when he heard the click that told him his order had been applied. "Well at least these two will not be able to overhear what I'm talking about. Still wish I could talk to Laura for a while alone." Thought the only Admiral left in the Colonial Military. He got mentally ready for what he was thinking, was going to be one of the oddest meetings he had heard of, much less participated in. "Frak, why couldn't one of those space fiction writers have been on one other ships of the refuge fleet?" This was the last random thought Bill Adama had, before it was game time and those types of random thoughts would not be helpful.

When the buzzing shifted tone and speed, to announce to the human interface that the machines were ready, Bill took a slow breath and then let part of it out threw his nose. "Two this is Husker. We are here." Bill was thinking that this was a simple statement, but it had a lot of weight to it. Now all they had to do was wait, and wait some more. Then out of the soft buzzing sound just audible in the background, something closed threw the black and cold of space on its way to the little Colonial craft. It was the start of a carrier wave, that was going to start changing the world of the Colonials and cylons like no one had ever thought of.

"Husker you old dagget! It's Fraking good to hear from you. Break." After a few long seconds that voice came back on line with the same level of vigor. Using the word Break was an old school technique, to let the people on the other end know that he was about to change the subject. "They should be on line any minute now." Bill knows that the voice that came out of the speaker, was that of the unmistakable grizzled voice from his friend and old XO of his command.

Bill was not going to waste the limited time he had in system by sitting still and doing nothing. The two were able to use the dead time, to talk for a few minutes in private. But in that limited time, the leader of the armed Colonial Forces planet side was able to bring the Admiral up to speed on recent history. At least he was able to cover the high points, at least as Saul knew them. Bill really needed more time, but that was something they did not have in any abundance. Soon a second voice came over the energy waves, and this one Bill Adama had never heard before. As soon as the noise became clear, and Bill could make out the sounds, his skin started to crawl under his spacesuit.

"Husker this is Kelly. Do you copy…Over?" These words came from a soft, but obviously a computer generated voice. That voice was also in almost perfect sounding Caprican.

Saul came back on line, before Bill could get his feet under him again. Bill was still trying to get his skin to stop crawling at the computer generated sound as his longtime friend spoke. "Frak, it sounds like they have that Fraking translation computer up and running again. I still hate the voice it Fraking uses, no matter how many times I hear it. It makes my skin fraking itch every time I hear it. I swear that it sounds like one of Number Six is talking to me through it." Saul Tigh stopped talking for a few seconds, and when he finally came back on line. He was using a more clam and steady voice. Bill made a note, that he had heard that tone coming from Saul only a few times in the whole time that he known him. "One other thing Bill, you might want to speak a little slower than normal. You also might want to use smaller words, when you can. Sometimes that Fraking thing will come up with the oddest translations, you have ever heard in your life."

The last part had a hint of humor, that Bill had not heard coming from his friend in an equally long time. Something was said soon after that, but Bill did not catch what was said much less who might have done the speaking. He assumed that whatever it had been, it was not directed at him so he did not say anything back yet.

Bill could hear his old friend now give a laugh. It had been even longer, since he had heard that type of noise come from the other man. Well when Saul as deep in the bottle he would laugh, but it always sounded kind of crazy to Bill's ears. He also heard a second and a third strange distinctly male voice also making the same type of noise. Bill Adama decided that that he should acknowledge, that he heard the question from the strangers called Kelly. It was one of the strangest conversations Bill had in a long time. Surprisingly the Strangers were able to give Bill an update on some of the happenings around the planet and off of it. They were little things, like the comings and goings of the cylon supply ship that the Admiral had not known about. The strangers had no idea of the class of ship, but they did have a rough idea of the measurements. He was also picking up a mix bag of information, that he could double check on, and other items that he would have to take on faith. At least he was willing to do that, for now. Faith was something he was in short supply of, but he would try…for now. He would just have to make sure, he did not miss any golden nuggets of information. That might or might not be there for the taking. It was almost over whelming for Bill, but he kept it all straight in his mind. Then Bill's eyes went wide.

Bill pressed himself against the metal bulkhead, then quickly spun around, and hit it with his covered fist with quite a bit of force. Skulls and Kats heads spun around to see what had caused the assault, but Bill waved them off before he went back to talking to the people on the life giving planet. "Well that just Fraked up my primary plan."

Saul rocked back in his homemade chair, near the homemade table in this shack. He knew that Bill would have already come up with a plan or more likely many plans. On how to get his people off the planet, and away from the cylons again. He leaned back forward and pushed the button to talk again. "What Plan would that be Bill?" The tone Saul used was an odd mix of relief, and self-interest. He had just won a sizeable bet with a few of his closer associates.

Admiral Adama thought for a fast second, then shrugged his tired shoulders. The second skin of the life protecting suit he was wearing, carried the shoulder movement to the other two people in the Raptor. "Well what the Frak." He said to himself. He pushed the button on the side of his helmet, and told the others on the line. About his main draft plan for what he had been calling in his mind Operation Exodus. To call it a draft plan was not right, any of the senior leader training course instructors would have had a fit calling his plan even that developed. That did not mean that he had not launched real world attacks with a less developed plan. He had done that in fact, more than once.

Captain Kelly looked around the table after hearing the rough details of the voiced plan. It was not a bad plan, over all. It also was not a great plan by any means, but it could work. Kelly made a few head nods to the others to tell them that he was not opposed to this idea, right now. "Admiral Adama." Kelly waited for a few seconds, to make sure that he was not going to be talking over someone else. "We think it is still a work able plan. Can we break down this plan a little more?" He waited again, but after no sign of interruption he continued. "Frist I understand needing to get the code to unlock the jump engines for all of your grounded ships. We can send at least a little more body armor into your camp, if that will help with the mission. We don't have that much that will blend in with your people's current situation, but we can send a little more if it will help. That is, it the body armor could not be used somewhere else that was better to support your plan? Than let me know, and we will see what we can do to best help out."

Saul jumped in on the conversation, before Bill could say anything or address the question that had been asked to him with that odd sounding computer voice. "That would be good to have some more body armor here. But we sure could Fraking use some better weapons. Any chance you could pass along a few thousand our way?" The tone that Saul had used was hard to read by most people, and even Bill was having a hard time figuring out if the statement was all in jest or not.

Bill could not see it, but he could somehow feel that the people representing the Earthers were tensing up at what Saul Tigh had said. He was surprised when a calm voice that Bill was starting to recognize as this Captain Kelly person, came back on the line. Only five or six second after Saul had stopped talking. "We have extra weapons, but we don't think that we will have time to cross train your people in their effective use. Look how long it took Jammer and Duck to be able to hit anything we could call regularly in a fluid situation. They are even now only rated as barely trained, by our standard of weapons use. We on the Triumvirate have two ideas, which I was asked to present today. We would like to have some feedback on. The first, is that we will target more of these human clone forms. Or whatever you want to call those versions of cylons. They are the ones that are carrying weapons, which are most like what you have on hand already. Plus you will already know how to use and maintain. The second thing, is that we have a little over 400 of our own people underarms, and at our command as of today. We can send a few small groups of our people forward that have trained, and have proven that they can work together with your people already. They could add a combat core in, or at least get them closer to the camp for heavy combat." Kelly had stopped talking for a few seconds. "We have not tried doing that yet. We could only do something like that, when we know that your operation would be kicking off. We do not want our people caught inside your camp by the machines, waiting for the go word. We understand there is a risk putting our people out there outside of the camp. But we would or more importantly need to limit that risk as much as reasonable." Kelly let this float in the air, and waited for someone to reply to what he had said. He thought he had an idea of what would happen next, but you never could be right 100 percent to the time.

A different voice came on the line that did not belong to Saul, Bill or anyone form the Settlement, and had not been heard from yet. Bill took a few seconds, to recognize the voice as belonging to his old deck boss Chief Tyrol. It was clear and steady, and should like the old Deck Chief that Bill had known for slow long. He did not sound like the drunk that he had turned into after getting out of the military. "Captain Kelly, I have an idea that I have been kicking around in my head for some time. Do you have many of those larger external heavy weapons mounts, that some of the Centurions carry, stored at the Settlement somewhere? Do you have any that are not being used for something else yet? If so can you divert them from their current use?"

"What the hell is he thinking?' said Kelly. Thankfully the translation computer did not send those words out on the Colonial made transmitter. Slowly Kelly started talking as clearly as he could to the device. "Mr. Tyrol, please wait one minute. I have to access something." He did not wait for a reply as he stepped away from the table to access the main information network of the Settlement of Safe Port Bay.

Saul was looking cross-eyed at the sober knuckle dragger in the chair next to him. At the edge of the solar system, Adama was also had an expression on his face. That would have said, that he had no idea what the Chief was thinking. Bill did have an advantage on the others involved in this conversation today. That was because he knew, that this was the man who came up with a stealth jump capable attack craft. He had done it from some half remembered idea, and without notes or plans of any kind the Bill knew about. If he had an idea that was already into the asking phase for support, than it was a good bet. That it would be worth the wait, no matter what the idea might be in the end. One part of Bill Adama's brain was trying to come up with a list of things, which the Chief might had been thinking of. After some very hard thinking and some brain sweat, so far, he had zero items on that list. This just made Bill think that this might be in the fraking great idea category.

Kelly sat back down at the table and passed the note around the table to the two other leaders that had come from a planet called Earth. When the other two men had nodded, that it was okay to pass the information along. Kelly hit the button on the device again on the table top after taking a deep breath. "Sorry about the delay, but I did find the information the Chief was asking about. As of the last time the data was updated, we have 200 of those weapons he was talking about still in what we think is still working order. We have ten of them are set aside for use in different types of testing, that some of our people are doing. Okay, now what are you thinking Chief?" Kelly had said and asked, what everyone else was thinking and so far had not but those thoughts into words.

In a small craft at the edge of the solar system, the senior military commander's eye brows went deep into his hairline. Who was this person, to address his old deck chief with the same handle he used for the man? Bill Adama's mind was starting to rebel at the information his ears had given him, he quickly realized that Lee, Starbuck and a Battlestar load of other people had always called Galen Tyrol the Chief. Bill resigned himself to find out how this stranger, who was one of the leaders of this strange group, was able to become so familiar with his people. And they did not rebel again it, this was the third person that he had referenced to, and had seem to have good first hand relations with. Bill hoped this was not a threat on the horizon for his people.

Tyrol cleared his throat loudly, now that the airwaves were clear again and he knew that everyone or everyone was waiting on him to address their questions. This did get picked up by the device, and passed along to the rest of the sets on this network. Tyrol was turning a little red as he spoke. "Well ahhh, I haven't completed a design or anything, but I was talking to Duck and Jammer the other night. They were telling my about those big guns mounted on a small ATV or something that the Settlement put together a while ago. From what I understand they are a field expedient way to supply heavy firepower with the Settlements limited resources. The cylon heavy weapons are too big for most people to carry effetely. Well maybe except maybe by Amazon, or someone with something like her gods given build." He stopped talking for a second to collect and focus on his thoughts. "I think they are about 40 or 45 pound each when loaded, and they don't have a recoil system even worth mentioning. We don't have any Colonial vehicles, but I was thinking, that I could put two metal handle loops on the ends of one. And then maybe we could have a third person acting an ammunition carrier or extra muscle." Tyrol started talking faster, and faster now that he was on a roll and the thoughts were pouring out of his head and mouth at lightning speed. "They would not be very mobile, but once they were set up in a good location. Well they would be a pretty heavy defense point to go against. That is once they were fully set up, and ready for action. Oh and they will use up a lot of ammunition with their higher rate of fire than normal Colonial weapons."

Bill rocked his head back and hit the Raptor's metal bulkhead with a soft thud, and Skull's head snapped over and looked at him with more than an alarm showing on his face. Bill made a hand waving jester again to show everything was okay. "Chief what about training, weapons range, targeting, and spare ammunition, and other things like that?" Bill was not a ground force commander by training or experience, but he could whistle the tune pretty good now and then. While he had been talking, Bill was already picturing where he could have put those weapons. Just from his memory of the camps layout ingrained into his brain. He also was thinking that the Chief, had just come through in pinch. Again, just like the old days and Bill had a sly smile on his face after hearing of his rough ideas.

Kelly's mind was also going full speed and rolling the idea around in his head as fast as he could. The work that he had seen, when they had modified the extra weapons months ago. Those weapons could only have been carried by Robots or something Juicers, and cyborgs. It helped him picture what the Chief had been talking about. When he was ready to talk, Kelly pushed the button again. "Chief if you get the plans together, and sent them back out to us, about how you wanted it? You will need to send along any notes you might have on them also. I think we can send a few dozen right away or on short notice to you in the camp, and you do the work in house so to speak. How many do you think you will need, it total?" Kelly looked down at his little computer's display at his fingertips to a note off to one side of the screen. "We have just fewer than 5000 rounds for them on hand, but that is not a complete count. I can put out a notice to see what might be lying around and might not have been turned in yet." Kelly stopped talking, and was thinking but his mind was working the issues as he saw them. "Admiral Adama if you are just using something like this in the camp or in an ambush situations say in the forest. The range and aiming should not be that much of an issue, with the automatic firing weapons. I think it would be more about firepower, and hoping your impact zone is clear of any friendlies than pin point fire." Kelly was talking and he let something slip, that he had not intended to. "We even have term for it. Spray and pray." Kelly felt his jaw clamp shut, when he realized what he had said.

Saul hit the transmit button first this time. His reaching over also had the effect of cutting off the motion from the wrench turner, who was going for the same button but not as fast. "Captain Kelly, we don't have that many people in the resistance yet. But a cool dozen would be about as many as we could field, with a three person team on each weapon. I would like at least 500 projectiles or rounds for each of the weapons that you send us. If you can get them started our way, we can work something out about doing the modifications once they get her. The Chief is nodding his head like a hungry daggit, so it's safe to say that he agrees with me." Saul had not even looked at the other man to see it was a true statement or are not. He did notice the Chief pull out a few sheets of rectangle paper with drawings on them from one of the huge number of pockets in his inner coat. The primary image looked like the huge cylon weapon they had been talking about, for Saul's point of view.

Kelly needed to get control of the meeting again, so that he could get to what he thought was the more important part of the meeting that had not been covered yet. When there was some dead air, and before anyone else could say something else. Kelly hit the button and started speaking to the group spread latterly around the star system. "The second thing my group would like to know. Is why do you want to evacuate the planet so fast? From what we have been able to find out and Colonel Tigh, please correct us if we are working on the wrong information. But all of the ships on the ground need at least some heavy maintenance work, before they can take a space transit of any length or duration safely. I would bet, Admiral. That the ships that are with you, also could use some dock time or at least the time it would take to look all of the major systems over very closely." Captain Kelly thought he might know the answer to this question already, but thought that it was best to ask. If only to just make sure the three of them were right about that assumption. He and the rest of the leadership need to make sure there assumptions were good, or not. It not, then they were in some deep dinosaur scat, without a rope or a friend to get them out of it. A lot of effort and plans the Earthers had made would have been shoved right out the window in a hurricane.

While Admiral Adama was deciding whether or not to answer the strange voice on the line, which he had never met before. Saul came back on the line and made the decision for him. Bill was not sure he was happy about it or not, but that was one of the jobs and XO had always done for him. The reason Bill wanted to get everyone off the planet so fast, was very simple. He wanted to get as many of them the Frak away from the cylons as fast as he could if not a little faster than that. "Yea all of our ships here could use some yard time. I don't even know how many ships will be able to lift, even if we had all of the engine codes for a few full days before we wanted to lift off. Even then we won't know for sure, until the engines are fired up and the jump drives spun fully up in orbit." The tiredness of Saul's voice came over the communication device clear as a bell, for everyone to hear. With dejection and resigned misgivings coloring his voice he continued his line of thinking only pausing to take in air that he would need to communicate with. "But I don't see that we have any other choice, but to leave this planet as fast as we can, to get away from these Fraking cylons. We will need to find another place to hide for a while, before the ships start breaking down for good on us."

Bill now was ready to say something, now that the cat was now out of the bag. "We are in the same situation out here just a little better with the support ships we have with us. I also don't know where we can find an open space dock or any open contrition slips that we can use." His voice was a little sharper than he wanted it to be, but all of the information was out in the open now. He knew that he had only said the truth. He had not been looking that far in the future, had decided that he would work on that issue after the near term problems with the cylons was handled.

The line between the different groups was quite for a while as this information was processed by many different minds. Then the computer voice came back on the line, and Adama leaned closer to the console fixed mounted in the Raptor. Skulls looked up at the movement, but the expression on the Old Man's face stayed his tongue and he quickly looked away from the Admiral. He had the sudden desire to be any were else and look at anything other than the Admiral.

"We might have an idea. Please hear us out before you judge us. And yes, we will listen if you have suggested changes, we have no problem understanding that this is not our area of expertise." Kelly let the line go quite again, and when no one jumped at the chance to raise any hurt feelings he continued. The quite could be a good thing or a very bad thing, and Kelly did not know which one it would be…yet. "We are getting reports that the command cylons, at least some of these human looking ones. Well they want to leave this planet, and the surviving humans living on it all alone. From what Colonel Tigh had sent us, from someone inside your camp occupation government. One of the key reasons for this push. It is that they are going crazy, because they can't download into new bodies after my people put them down with weapons fire. We also know about how long it will take these cylons to get reinforcements out here again. My ground force commander believes, that if we hit them hard enough and soon enough. We could have at least four months to rebuild or repair your ships before the cylons can rebuild and return. That is after we have taken care of local cylons. I know that you and your ships could get pretty far in that same amount time at least the ones that were functional enough to leave this solar system. However, you still would also have ships breaking down or at least not running correctly slowing you down as you flee the cylons again. I think that means that you would have to find another place to hide sooner or later. You would also have to do that, before you all had to start learning how to breathe in a hard vacuum." Kelly stopped talking with a clamp of his jaws. Something had just pinged in the back of his mind, and he would have to start working on it. However he did not want to touch that idea with these people. At least not yet.

A very tired voice came from Bill Adama that eminently set Saul on edge. Saul had only heard that tired of a voice coming from Bill Adama during that special time in Hades were they were jumping every 33 minutes for what seemed like yarns. Saul kept his mouth shut and carefully looked at the shacks walls while his friend talked. "I agree with ever thing you just said Captain Kelly, and I'm not in Fraking love with the Plan either. But it's the only one I have at the time, that will let some of us get away from the cylons even in the short term Do any of you have any suggestions? I'm all open to have another set of eyes, and brains looking at this. Maybe someone else can come up with something that works out better for us and/or worse for the cylons."

Kelly could hear the pain the other man's voice as it came over the speaker in the meeting room. This was a man who was tired of running away, and having every detail fall on him to work out and then live with the result of those details. The Space commander had just punted the ball, and it had landed right at Kelly's feet weather he wanted it to or not. "Admiral you caught me flat footed here. I don't even have a frame of reference for the capabilities of your fleet. We had no idea that it could be even possible to leave this planet scientifically, so we have not even thought about it." That last part was not exactly true, but it was not that far into the lying territory to be that major of an issue. "Let us think about it for a while, the ground situation is static for now. So we have some time to game plan something out, which might give us a better chance of surviving over all. Admiral could you okay someone to talk to us about military maters dirt side? That would help those of us who don't know much about spaceships and the associated support systems. We are also short on personnel, who have a back ground in any of the Colonial Military technologies on our side of the combat lines. We have not asked before, because frankly we did not want to insult or make Colonel Tigh uncomfortable with the request if he said no."

Bill thought for a second and nodded his head slightly up and down. He was surprised that this "Captain Kelly" was so quick off the mark and along with having some good points. The crew of the Raptor saw this head movement, and since they had not been able to listen in on the conversation that was taking place. This was the first real hint things were going one way or the other on this long distance and very high level meeting.

Bill had just barely noticed Skulls reaction to his absent minded head nod. "That sounds like a plan for the short term." Bill did not know how to let these Strangers know that, he would like to end this public meeting. And that way he could talk to his people in private without taking a chance of offending the only real human military power operating at the bottom of the gravity well. As it turned out, he did not need to worry about that little problem after all. He would laugh at himself later, for the hour of wasted worrying that fake problem had caused him.

A second voice came across the device, then that cold voice turned the first heard gibberish Bill had heard into something he could at lease understand. The sound of the computer generated voice still sent chills down Bill's spine now hours into the meeting. "Good, we will let you go for now Admiral. I bet you have some other items to talk about, that are not relevant to or for us. Colonel Tigh can contact us on your Radio set later, so that we can work out a few things that Admiral Adama has already Okayed? We look forward to when we can see each other face to face for these meetings. Safe Port Bay Settlement out."

Bill waited for a full minute before saying anything else. He had no idea if they were really gone or not. He was afraid that there was a way to find out, and it could cause some political blow back on him later. He also would be very embarrassed, if it turned out they were still on the line. After a few seconds that seem to stretch out into minutes. Bill did what he felt he had to do, and embarrassment be Fraked. "Saul, do you think they are off line?"

The gruff voice came back quickly threw the speaker in Bills spacesuit. "Bill from my dealings with them, and everything I have heard about them from others. It is that they tend to do what they, say they will do. I have no doubt about it, if they said they were off the air. Then I think they are off the line. Still, how about we go to the Alt 4 setting?"

Bill turned and placed his hand on a special switch on Skulls console. Skulls looked up at his commander and slid his chair back out of the way as far as he could. Bill did not acknowledge the movement as the kept talking to Colonel Tigh. "Alt 4 in 4, 3, 2," Bill waited for a long three second count after flipping the switch on Skulls console before speaking again. He hated waiting and it seemed to take too long so Bill started talking. "Saul are you there?"

When the old Colonel came back on the line that the strange humans would not have the encryption or coding pulses to match. It was as close as they could get to have a private conversation, without being face to face. The two men had more time to discuss what to do, and how to do it. It was descended that Saul would be allowed to cover a certain list of both political and military information for this other group of humans. Bill also made sure to reference the praise that those strangers had given Duck and Jammer earlier. They had been only average crew under his command, but now it seemed as if they had step up to being highly valued members of the Colonial military.

After all of the work was done between Bill and Saul. Bill was even able to talk to Laura for a few minutes, before they had to start on the list of interstellar jumps away from this system. These round about interstellar jumps would take them back to the safety of the warships on time. The only reason they had to leave when they did. Was that the battery power was running out on the twin recon drones. They were helping to keep an eye on an extend area of space around the small oddly shaped Colonial craft. This was greater area than what the Raptor could do on its own built in systems. It would be too dangerous to stay, without the advanced notice that those drones would provide to Skulls in his EO seat. He did not want the cylons getting too close to them, while in hiding with Admiral Adama in the back.

#######

Back at the Settlement, Captain Kelly was quite as the transmitter was shut down and the whole system was powered down to be returned to the common shack. He looked around the room, some people in this room had wanted to listen in longer. They had wanted see if they could pick up anything that might be interesting passing between Colonel Tigh and this Admiral Adama. Captain Kelly had told them that it would violate the Colonial's trust when, and not if it leaked out about what they had done. "Gentlemen, now we need to talk about what is going to happen when the Colonial do leave this planet. I would bet that they will keep looking for this version of Earth. That they were looking for, before stopping off due to internal political pressure. I think it is past time to think about the 800 pound neo-lion in the room. Are we going with them? Do we ask them, or wait to be asked? If we are going with them, what will we be taking with us, and what will be left behind?"

Kelly looked around again and stopped talking and then dropped the elephant in the room. "What happens if they don't find our Earth, and we are with them?" He drummed his fingers from both hands on the wood covered table top. When no one jumped in immediately, Kelly nodded his head. "I think we might have to put it to a full vote for the whole settlement to decide. In fact I think that is what we need to do. I do not know if we have the right to decide this, only among the three of us." This was the first time that Captain Kelly had put something like this to the council. The shock was plan to see on the other two men's faces.

The meeting went on for hours, and nothing was decided by them for the rest of that day. That little fact was not, that much of a surprise to Kelly, Max and Bob. Because as Kelly had said, no one in their group had put in a lot of thought about leaving this planet in anything like a realistic way other than Rifting back out. When the group had beating the topics to death, the idea to call it quits for the night was brought up and passed. Captain Kelly, and of all the leadership members, had a land cabin built for them but Kelly rarely used his. Kelly normally preferred to stay the night within his ship. Even before coming to this new cold planet. Captain Kelly usually only slept in his land based home with his wife. When that marriage had ended years ago, he had not picked up the habit of not living off of his ship again. Bob also had kept his old cabin on his ship, and even Max had small cabin built on the deck of the large cargo ship. This now had the advantage of being close at hand when the meeting ended late tonight, and that was good enough for most of the leadership.

Captain Kelly was walking back up a gang plank to his ship after saying good night to the two other men he concerned friends as well as co-workers. That was when that itch that had been slowly building up in the back of his mind, went into overdrive and he could not ignored it any longer. Both of the big ships had crews that manned their main systems at every hour of every day. Each ship had the hum of life going through them. Which the Captains could feel threw the souls of his boots when the treaded the decks of their commands. They even would have drills to keep those crews sharp, in case of a surprised attack by the cylons or some unknown threats. Kelly stepped in to check the bridge crew like he did every night, before going to his cabin on a next lower deck of his ship. That cabin was still closer to the heart and brains of his ship, than any of the land built homes. Both Kelly and Bob knew that sometimes a delay of only a second or two could cost them the lives of their crews.

After the Captain check each station on the bridge, and reviewed all of the reports. He was stratified, and was about to finally retire for the night. Kelly made a face as his eyes glanced toward one door, which he wanted to use, badly. He stopped one more time, almost tripping as his feet and legs locked up. He had one more item to take care of before he could go out that metal hatch. If he did not address this now, he would not be able to get to sleep tonight no matter how badly he wanted that much needed sleep.

Kelly gave soft sigh then half turn to one person on the bridge. "Officer of the Deck, please send a runner to go find Dexter. Let him know, that I need to see him tonight." He turned to leave the bridge, and then he stopped again, and spoke over his shoulder. "If they can't find him in two hours, let me know. I will post a message to him on the information network. No need to have a runner wakening everyone up in a dozen cabins, for something that is not life threatening". That was it, he was done with the bridge for the night. He was now one step closer to being able to crawl between the covers on his bed for some hours of much needed rest. It was just too bad that he had many more steps to go before then.

Kelly let the door auto close behind him, as he made his way deeper into the ship, which had been his domain for so many years. After he came to the hatch he was heading for, the hatch did not open for him automatically, that every other hatch on this converted warship would have. He punched in a code into the hatch frame mounted key pad, and the door swung open on its own with a soft hisss. It was a nice little cabin, a lot better than any others on the ship. Not that it would have been that large to most non sea salt eyes. It still would have been called small, when compared to any of the homes built on shore of the bay. The main room was his office, which was dominated with a nice if only medium sized wooden desk. That wooden desk had replaced the old metal desk on the second year of being on this new planet. The cheap but good thickness metal was of more useful for other things, that the settlement could use more than just a deck for the ship's master. When he had been given the very nice wooded desk. That had been made from a selection of the most beautiful local woods, he had little chose but to accepted the gift. The recycling center had been very happy with the idea of having the extra metal that his heavy desk would provide. They had not been as happy later. When they had found out, that they would have to be the ones. That had to move the 300 or 400 pound metal desk out of his cabin, down narrow halls, and off of the ship. Getting the heavy desk off the ship had been done by the simple method of tossing it over the side of the ship. To land on the dock some many feet below the Neptune's Revenges main deck with a very loud crash. That was a lot more satisfying than using a crane for the people who had to manhandle the unwieldy desk for almost two hours.

Kelly took off his outer coat and as he was having a flash back. He was seeing them again, getting the mass of metal out the narrow hatch, down almost as narrow corridors, and up even narrower stairs to the outside top deck. It had only been funny to watch by those that did not have to do it, and a few recordings had been made by a few brave souls doing the work. Kelly only knew of one recording, and the recorder had been the subject of an OPP pay back after over sharing the recording. Now Kelly would be surprise if there were any metal desks, tables or even bunks left on the two ships. As long as the replacements were safe, he had no problem with them being gone and replaced with local made substitute. After all metal was in that short supply, and could be better used else ware. That is until they started harvesting the battlefield of slightly used Centurion parts.

Kelly had fallen in love with the massive wooden desk within the first week of it being in his office. He had never had a desk anything like this before, but he had seen more than one of the types in his long career at sea. It was known that other ships masters had them made for their commands from time to time. He had never had the base desire to pay to have one made for his ship. But now he knew about the allure of how the warm wood feels under his fingers tips and hands.

When he sat behind the wooden desk, in his chair that he had splurged on after a trip to Chi-Town. He would waste sever minutes each time, just running his hands back and forth across the oily smooth wood top. The polished wood was silky smooth, and was always warm under his touch. It was almost like petting a living animal, but not at the same time. Kelly had no idea if this was the same type of feeling those other officers had felt with their own desk. The top of his was made up off at least four different types of local wood that he knew of. And each one of those local woods felt different to his palms when he touched them.

Kelly had to force himself to stop running his hands over the warm wood, and reached for his minicomputer to make a few notes. It they were going to have to leave this planet. Then it might be a good idea to take a few samples of the native planets that had proven so useful to them so far. The land base planet should be easy to deal with. But the sea based plants? That might prove to be impossible to bring them along on any trip off this planet. They just did not know enough about the life cycle of this world even after these last few years to study them. They also did not know the capabilities and availability of the Colonial's starships to keep any of the local plant life alive after the plants had left the surface. He made another note to ask the hydroponics people and maybe one the Stapp's. They might have some useful information or experience he could tap.

Captain Kelly was so into working on the reports, that he lost track of the time. He only looked up and checked the time on his built in clock, when a solid knock came from his access hatch. He had been working for almost an hour on the growing list of plants and many other reports he had to work on. "Well, I hope that is Dexter." Kelly said aloud, but to himself at the same time. In a louder voice, he spoke to the metal door across the office form his seat. "Enter!" Was the simple command he gave to whoever had knocked.

The massive metal hatch opened with ease of well-maintained heavy hydraulics, and Dexter entered the office with his head downcast. He was dirty but that was not unknown to him, or for the rest of the people who called Settlement home. At least compared to their normal level of personnel hygiene, before coming to his cold world. What was not normal was the smell coming from him that reached across the small room to assault the ships commander's nose like a hammer of stench. It smelled like he had been drinking heavily…. again. Kelly had to fight not to let his face show any change after the wave of smell hit him. "Well this might not be the best time to see him." Thought Kelly to himself. As quickly as the thought formed in his mind, he came up with a work around. You could not have a slow mind and be a ship's master, or reaming one for any length of time.

Dexter was fully into the room, but Kelly could tell that this was one of the last places in the world that he wanted to be right then. "Sir, you want to see me?" It was about was a submissive of a voice, as Kelly heard from the old gun crewmen. At least since he had been let go from his crew, for drunk or hung over while on duty in one of the gun turrets.

Kelly put the paperwork down that he had been working on, and fixed a hard gaze on the man still standing before him. "Yes Dexter, I did. So where were you at? I hope they did not have to pull you out of bed?" Kelly let his voice get softer, and even let the disapproval look leave his face that he felt had shown up anyway. "Why don't you have a seat?" Kelly pointed to a chair across from him on the other side of his desk. Kelly was worried that from the smell coming of him, that he might fall down on the floor and hurt himself with the impact. The room did not have any rugs covering the metal deck, and it would leave a mark if Dexter hit it with his face while moving at any speed.

Dexter gave a small sad smile, and walked over to the padded chair in front of the desk. He took the seat, and almost sagged into the thick padding. He had been asked a question, by the person who he felt was still his commander. He felt like he "had" to answer the direct questions first. No matter how much he did not want to do anything like that. "Sir, you know I was not in my bed. I was at the bar." He looked at his feet, and leaned over so that his eyes were not looking at Captain Kelly. He was trying to stare a hole in the wooden sides of the desk. "I was not on duty of any kind Sir. If I had known you wanted to see me. I would not have had drank a few before coming over to see you."

Kelly held his hand up to stop the man from talking farther, and to show that he was not upset with him showing up a little buzzed. "Dexter I'm not here to judge you, which was never my job in the first place when you were off duty. You're not a member of my crew, unless you're on call and I know for a fact you were not. I asked for you to meet me tonight at the last minute. Now if you're not up to having a meeting with me tonight? We can set up a meeting for tomorrow, it that is better for you. It was not a life or death situation. I just looking for some answers, that I thought you might be the only person who can answer them for me."

Dexter squared his shoulders and sat straighter and a little farther back in the padded chair across the desk from Kelly. "Sir, I only had a few stiff drinks to help me sleep tonight. I might not pass "A fit for duty test", but I'm not safe." Dexter stopped talking, and gave a wry grin to Kelly. "I also would not be the best at controlling one of the mini-subs right now. Or doing any work with things that might go boom if your look at them wrong. Other than those few things, I'm okay and good to do. What did you want to see me about, Sir? It is in my experience, ship's Captains do not send runners looking for someone. That is unless it's something that the Captain wants handled right now, and is not in the class of "it can wait" kind of matter. You called for me so, I'm here. Let's get it over with now. If you would please Sir."

Kelly thought as he kept is face very still, "Okay, so he is not that impaired after all." Kelly did not let the air stay quiet for long. "Okay Dexter, let's give it a try. I need you to think back to that day you brought that map to me. And we spent all of that time on the bridge that day working with the data. What was it you said about this bay?" Kelly was tapping a paper maps on his desk top. They were not maps of the local area, but instead they were of the area around New Caprica. Whatever they were a map of, it must have somehow worked on the tall thin man. Kelly's eyes went a little wider as an effect he had seen before visibly took hold of Dexter.

Dexter's eyes rolled up into his head, and he started to chant. Just like he had done that day on the bridge of this very ship, those few years ago. It had happened a few times since that day, but from what Captain Kelly had been able to find out. It only happened when certain queues were pushed, and pushed hard. Kind of like Captain Kelly had done to him, just now. It was the words at the end of the chant that Kelly was waiting for. Then Dexter chant hit part about the sea caves, Kelly snake quick hit the record button on his little computer sitting at his fingertips. While Dexter was talking, Kelly was quiet and thinking as the younger man chanted away. "Why would someone plant that idea, and that specific information into his mind? When he was done chanting, Dexter returned to normal as fast as he had entered the trance. Kelly unnoticed stopped the recording of the non-musical chant. Kelly made a face and was kicking himself for not thinking about this before all of those months ago. With a slight shake of his head, Kelly was resigned to chocking it up to, what was done was done. And he could not go back in time to change it.

As soon as the word had stop coming out of his mouth, and his eyes rolled back to be more normal looking. Dexter grabbed his head with both hands. He rocked back and forward about five or six time as he started moaning in pain as he moved in his over padded chair. For more than a few seconds, Dexter did not know if he was going to lose his dinner and the drinks he had taken in with it or not. He was in that position for almost five full minutes, before he looked back up at the Captain threw now extremely bloodshot eyes. He shot the Captain a questioning look, before he asked what he was thinking after the cob webs had cleared somewhat. "Did it happen again? It feels like it did." He rocked a few more times, when he saw the Captain nod his head to say that "it" had indeed happened again. "God I hate it, when that happens. Did I say anything new this time?" Dexter let a little heat color his voice when he asked the next question. now what his mind was starting to catch up to a few things. "Is that why you wanted to see me?"

Captain Kelly was rubbing his chin with his right hand and made what he thought of as his most understanding face. "Yes Dexter it was. What I did not know, was that it would cause you any pain. That much less, that it would cause you that much pain. If I had known that bit of information, I would have asked you first, before I tried it? I am sorry about the pain I caused you." He had not lied about being distressed about the pain that he had seemed to have caused his old crew member. He now felt like he needed to do something to make up for it.

Kelly reached down and opened a side mounted desk drawer and retreated a bottle and two glasses that were lurking with its wooden sides. There were two bottles in that particular drawer of his desk. Both bottles had come from Kelly's slowly depleting personal locker. The bottle he pulled out was slightly different the one that stayed in the wood drawer in his sleeping cabin. That one, was one of only four bottles left from a case that his late second wife had bought him a long time ago. The one bottle that came out into the open also was not as top shelf as what was in his sleeping cabin. But still was among the best, if not the best, that was left in the human settlement. Kelly poured two large fingers measures into each short lead crystal cut glass, and then pushed one of them towards the other man across the desk top. It was not every day that Captain Kelly, offered a sip from his personnel stash to anyone. Kelly was known to buy drinks for people and even the odd groups. But it would be whatever was available at the local watering hole, and not from his office bottle.

Dexter saw the deep amber colored liquid threw the cut lead crystal glass, and reached for it with slightly shaking hands. The shakes were a caused by a mix his past drinking, the pain of his trance, mad at what someone had intentionally had done it to him, and the idea of having a drink with the most powerful person in the Settlement. He took a deep sip, before he sat back deeper into the chair. He was rubbing the sides of his head near his temple, with the cooler short glass of alcohol. "I just wish that you would have let me know you plan first. The first few times it was not that bad, but it has gotten more painful each time it happened over the years. It's almost like its being pulling from deep in my brain somehow, if I drink too much, than it affects the pain level to even a higher level when it happens than normal. The more I drink, the worse the pain will be." He locked eyes with his old commander. Now that his brain was clearing up, he knew that Kelly would not have done something like what he had done without a good reason. Even if he had known that it would hurt him. Dexter had been with Captain Kelly long enough to see more than a dozen body bags filled. The question was, would he tell Dexter what the reason was? "Was it help full at all?"

Captain Kelly did not take a drink from the glass just yet, so both of his arms were on the desk top, and looked at the other man as he seemed to settle down. "Yes I think it might be. Now what I need to know about some of your hobbies, I hope it will not be as painful as the last data mining I did on you. How many of these underwater caves have you mapped so far, and in how much detail did you map them out?"

Dexter was not expecting that question at all and almost lost his grip, of the glass with the priceless liquid it held. He gave Kelly an odd look and answer that he was pretty sure Kelly, was not going to like. "Ahh Sir, I have spent a lot of time in the subs looking for different things that might be useful under the waves. I was not exactly detail mapping the caves down there or anything." Dexter lifted an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

Kelly made a face, and the ends of his lips turned down into it were almost in a frown. "I don't know, but whom or whatever hard wired your brain to give us the information about this bay. They made sure to say something about those caves every time you start you chanting. Of all the things that it could have had you say? It made you remember about those caves above almost all the rest of the things in your head." Kelly stopped talking and drummed his fingers on the table. "What I want is a complete survey of all of the caves starting with those that are nearby. And then as far up and down the coast as we can get. But we still have to keep a low profile from the cylons. You are the only person that I know that has spent that much time in the underwater caves, even before we came here. That makes you my first choices to do the job." Kelly gave Dexter a sly grin and almost reached for the glass, then stopped moving. "Or do you have someone else in mind, which could do the job as well or better than you can. What do you think, Dexter?"

Now Dexter was very uncomfortable, and spent some time moving around in the chair without saying a word. He did not even take another ship of the very good whisky in this glass. He was also using the time to get his thoughts together, and wishing for the 100th time that he had not had that 3rd or 4th drink in the bar. "Sir, what exactly are you looking for?"

Now it was Kelly's turn to be a little uncomfortable after being asked a valid question. He now used the time to take a small ship of his drink, and then he put it back on the desk top. All of this gave him time to get some thoughts together that had been free floating in his mind. "I don't know Dexter, but I take it that you are infested in the job. I was thinking that we could start with finding, measuring, and seeing if anything is useful that might have been over looked the first time you went through them. But I need it done as fast as you can." Kelly was moving another paper map in front of him out of a stack of papers off to one side of the desk. This one had been at the very bottom of the papers on his wooden desk. "Look at his." He pointed to a few locations on the map of the Bay area, not just the navigation charts. "We have a few mines, a shipyard, and an underground green house." He stopped talking, and tilted his head hard to the right, and looked closer at the map of the local area. That was it, and he blurted it out into the metal room of his cabin. "We have built a Shipyard in one of those sea caves! Can we put the Colonial spaceships in some of the caves around here? Would it protect them like it has for our other little projects from over flying cylons?"

Dexter was now visibly sweating buckets, and the air temperature would have been called very cool in the cabin. He had no idea what was the name to put on the stress he was feeling, but it fell into the "it sucked category". "Sir I don't know if I can do that. For starters I don't know anything about spaceships much less Colonial spaceships. How would I know which one of the caves where use-able or not? Now finding them? Yes, I can do, and I can get probably detailed measurements of them. I don't think that is not going to be a problem, same with checking out if there is anything useful hiding in them. But sir, anything after that, I'm just Fraking clueless." Dexter stopped talking and little beads of sweat where visible on his forehead.

Now Kelly was thinking and leaned back in his nice office chair. "Well he did not run for the hatch, when I asked like a bat out of hell. So he is most defiantly in on this scheme…maybe." Thought the Captain in a very quiet part of his brain, as he continued talking. "Who would you think, that you would need to help to do this? Give me a list of names, and I will see what I can do about getting them on board. I want you to understand that this is coming from me, and not the rest of guys. So if you say no, it's only between us. I will not tell anyone, and I hope you will not talk about to anyone about this. That is, If you decided not to take the mission."

Dexter wiped the sweat that was quickly building up on his forehead again. "Sir I just don't know where to start. Maybe that Tyrol guy could be helpful. He was some kind of military man, before they got here and stopped. I think that he had some experience a ships engineer or some something besides the small craft that we know he worked on. I'm not sure how he knew how to build those devices you had tested, I think that he might have the base experience we need. That is where I would start, at least. I just don't have a frame of reference to know who else would be an asset, and who would be a useless for something like this. I think you would want to keep this, in as small of a group as you can get for now. Two to four people to crew a ship, from that we could grow as skill gaps are identified."

Kelly smiled a little smile, and this time he had no problem letting it come to his face for the other man to see. Dexter had no idea that Tyrol had been requested to come back to the Bay by several different groups already. "I will see what I can do. I will also work on getting the Triumvirate to sign off on this as so as I can, but until I do. Yes I need you to keep this quiet, and I mean dead quiet about why you might be detail mapping those caves." He knew what was coming next from the other man, so Kelly kept on talking just a little faster than before to cover a few more details. "I will be paying for this out of my own pocket, until they do approve of it." Now Kelly had stop talking as he thought about, how long it might need to talk to get the other two leaders on board. With what even Kelly was thinking as a hair brained task? "I will be doing that, for however long it might take. You and I both know how this dance works Dexter. If you need to change something with this plan, then let me know. And we will meet again, to work it out. This is not that different, than any of those other hunting missions you have done over the last few years."

Dexter nodded and then threw back the rest of his drink that he had almost been forgotten about in his hands. He then put the empty glass on the wooden deck without it breaking. "Okay Sir. I'm in. I should be able to get into the water by tomorrow afternoon at the latest, and I will start close to the jetty, see what I can find using that as starting and reference point. When I have a good length list of targets, then we might want to send a second group out to see if they are what you looking for or not. If we can find the right people, which we can trust? Than if we have two groups working at the same time. We can work faster, after we get the ground rules worked out on what works for you and what does not. But it will cost more in money and support, but it will be done faster in the end. What do you want to do? Do you want faster, or do you want less expensive?"

Kelly opened another one of the side drawers of his desk, and pulled out a single sheet of paper from its depths. This was a letter headed sheet that had come with him, when they come to this new planet. He wanted and need to make sure anyone and everyone knows. That it was a task for him and only him as a person, and not as a member of the Triumvirate. He did not want anyone later saying that he misused his position for personnel gain. Misunderstandings like that had been known to take down a government a time of three. "This will let you take one of the submarines out, and put you on the list of people who have the funds to use it without questions coming up about payment. Which craft would you like to use? I think the Crayfish Crawler would be best. You're the expert, on what good, and what is needed for inshore scouting. What do you think? Would one of the others work better, for what I need you to find out?" Kelly was watching Dexter to see what he could read on his face for any hints. He was betting that he could read Dexter, now it would be time to have a mental payout.

Dexter was rubbing the stubble on his chin and was deep in thought. He was going back to all the hours he had spent in the various underwater craft. That the two ships had carried to his world as escorts or as deck cargo. "The crawler was the craft, I would want to take on something like this. It's also normally the one, with the shortest waiting list to be used. It's not the cheapest craft to use, but it's not the most expensive one to use."

Dexter gave a soft snort. Most of the time the Northern Gun made machine was just sitting tied up to the dock gathering dust. Dexter hated seeing machines just sitting around, and not unused for what they were meant for. Deep down he knew that they only had so much of the right kind of fuel, and when it was gone. When happened? Then all of those machines would be only worth value of the metal and components that they were made of. "It's also the one I used when I found anything that was worth finding, in the first place. Using the crawler would make it easier to re-check, and remove the caves the list that we already know that are two small. I would bet that with the tracks systems, I can really get closer to the sides of the caves safely. That would help to get the most accurate measurements that we cannot get by using a hovering submarine type craft."

Kelly finished writing on the leader headed page with an old but returning to style smooth polished wooden shell ball point pen. Kelly waved the sheet in the air a few times now out of habit, than a need for the paint to fully dry to prevent smudging. When he was done waving it in the air, he handed the sheet of fine paper over to the now very sober Dexter. "Mr. Dexter Wood if you need anything, you are to contact me directly." Kelly stopped talking when pulled the sheet back. He added a short line of information at the bottom of the sheet, and then passed it back to Dexter's side of the desk. "It might be quicker if you send me a message, and we can communicate like that for most small issues. Or in person, but speed and secrecy is paramount to me right now." Kelly cocked his head and tapped the newest line of information, which was Captain Kelly's personnel digital mail address. "Am I clear? Use all speed, but you have to be safe. And above all don't let the cylons see you. Or we all, are going to be very dead, very quickly. "

Dexter leaned forward and took the sheet of paper founded it into a square about three inches on a side. When he put the paper in his inner topcoat pocket, and Dexter subconsciously patted the pocket to make sure it was there and not a dream of some kind or border line nightmare. "Sir I understand. I will drop off or send updates before after each mission. Sir, I need to get on this. If you don't have anything else for me?" Dexter stopped talking, and he waited to both Kelly to add anything and to let his mind start making up a list of people and things. That he needed to get done before he launched on this new job.

Kelly shook his head sideways, and did not any unneeded words. "Well then Sir. I will have a list of names for you first thing in the morning, and then start working as soon as I get a basic crew together. I don't think it will take that long to get a starting up crew together." Dexter rose from the chair, and exited the cabin leaving the Captain to finish his work.

Dexter first stop after leaving Captain Kelly's office was to make sure the craft, he wanted to use was available. He had not noticed the craft tied up at the dock, when he had reported to Captain Kelly. As it had turned out the Crawler was reserved for an "on Call Mission", so he used the letter for the first time to bump the "on Call Mission" and replace it with his information. He was able to sign for the craft for a full week, before he would have to put his name on the list to use it again. The young man that was managing the large craft signing sheet, did not even bat an eye. About the request after seeing the letter from Captain Kelly, he was just there to make sure of access and payment. After that the man did not care, and he would not even talk about who was going to pay the bills.

######

Early the next morning a message arrived at New Caprica via radio that had been smuggled into the camp already. With the delivery of a long range radio, and two digital clocks, Saul Tigh had ordered that a radio shack would be set up. It went into a new fourth hiding spot that had been scouted out among the grounded space ships under the cylons noses. So many deep holes and tunnels had now been dug under the camp. That some were joking, that they were worried that they would have raised the ground level around the camp by the excavated dirt. It did help, to keep people helping out the Resistance. Without risking their lives with close in combat without weapons against the cylons.

The Radio Hole was manned at all times by a group of three people with the trickle of power supplied it and what the people needed, was supplied by a different nearby grounded ship. Something else that had been set, but it was for only emergency at first. That was a schedule that had been set up for runners, to also start helping out passing information between the Radio pit, and any of the key members of the leadership. One of the latest security measures, which had been set up at the Colonial's suggestion. Was that if contact was not made at certain preset times. Then the other stations in the network, would act like the affected station had been captured by the cylons. It would stay that way, until an inspection team report back something different. It was complicated, but it offered some security, if or when things went bad.

At the scheduled time a message was sent from Captain Kelly to Colonel Tigh on the other side of the planet. Kelly had kind of been surprised what he did not have a message waiting on him when he checked in with the duty officer. The radio shack operator took the message diligently if unbelieving, and had it passed via a runner it to the leader of the growing number of resistance personnel. Both of the support personnel that had been in the loop of this message. Had felt like they had just done something major to support the war against the cylons. Little did the pair know, exactly how much? Those few lines of a radio message would change both the Rift Earthers and Colonials in the coming months and beyond.

The runner had found Colonel Tigh in one of the cook tents seated by the EX-President enjoying the morning meal together. The runner was a young man and took a seat in an open seat next to the older man, and used the tall wood table top as cover to pass the note to the Colonel. Then the runner left the seat and was out the tent flap at a quick step. Without saying a word to anyone or trying not to draw to much attention to the task he had just completed. Saul read the note by unfolding it under the table, and glancing down to read the dozen lines of neat writing. Then Saul looked around the tent to make sure it was safe, and then passed it to the women sitting across from him the note. She read it once, looked up at the bald man then reread the twelve line message. She had to make sure it was what she thought it was saying when she read it the first time.

After reading the note twice more ingesting every word that was on the little slip of paper, she looked at the man and raised one eyebrow. She was almost in shock, but she was working through it quickly. "What do you think Saul?" She tapped the message from with a slightly shaking finger. "Is it a viable idea or not?"

Saul had stopped eating as soon as he had had been given the slip of paper. He did not know if was because of the message or hitting the bottle a little too hard last night, but he had now lost his appetite. "Well Laura, I had not thought about it or anything close to it. I would say it was a waste of time, but is not our time to waste. Is it? What we need to think about is, do have someone else that knows the information that they need. Is Tyrol really doing something for the mission here, that someone else can't do just as well?" He stopped talking for a second, and his voice went a little lower so that it would not carry too far. "I think it would be a worth asking Tyrol if he wanted to go or not. Those Frakers have been giving us almost everything we have asked for, so far. If Tyrol is game for it, then I would say that we should send him out as soon as he finished packing a backpack. I don't want them to get upset with us, and say no the next time we ask them for something. You know as well as I do. That we will be asking them for something new, before the next time they ask us for something they would like help with. I also well need to let Bill know about this idea. It is thinking outside the box…that is for Fraking sure. He had already agreed that we should send some people that have Colonial Military experience." Saul's head was rocking left and right as he was talking. Things seemed to have started picking up pace, and he could feel that a showdown was a lot closer. To coming true than he had thought only a few days ago.

Laura Roslin nodded and passed the note back to Saul across the table top smoothly, hidden beneath her palm. "I think it would be better if the request came from you first. IF Mr. Tyrol does not want to go, then let me know. And I will see, if I can talk him into volunteering to go out again." She looked down at her plate of food, and let out a deep breath. "I don't know of anyone that knows more about the different ships we have left, besides maybe Bill or Apollo." She was very sad, and that sad tone was in her voice. She had been that way ever since the one time she was able to talk to Bill. She was missing him even more now than ever. It was great to know that he was still alive, but she missed that man of hers. "Maybe I should be the one to call, and send the message out to Bill. There has to be a way I can talk to him without it looking like some kind of abuse of power by me. Well maybe not." She was thinking to herself, and her mouth turned down at the edges. The two did not talk much after they had decided on the key subjects.

The pair had stayed seated and finished the meal they had been severed down to the last bite. Good food was still in short supply, even with all of the smuggling going on with the help of the Earthers. At least now each person in New Caprica, was now being able to have a few ounces of fresh or dried fruit of some kind in their first meal of the day. Most of the fresh fruit had been at first earmarked for the kids, and those who were in bad health. Now they had enough to give some to everyone. Saul had the handwritten note in his pocket as he carried his plate to a central collection point. He did not know if he would need it to show that Tyrol, and prove that he had a by name request for something. Galen was a not that van person by nature, but it could be helpful to show the prestige he was held in. Saul was thinking that, it was always good to have everything you needed right on hand. Instead of having to stop, and retrieved it before coming back, to finish your business.

Saul made his way to the shack that Tyrol had been using as his home since the breakup with his wife. The most recent change, was that he was no longer was living alone in that small shack. A second bachelor had moved in with him, now that his drinking was under control. It was now rare to see him with a bottle of rotgut in his hands, or more importantly smelling of it. The other man that now shared the homemade shack was not what he seemed to be. He had been a jump engine engineer from a ship in orbit. He had been homeless, now that had been left behind on the planet doing a job interview. When his home had jumped out system, that day when the cylons had shown up again.

This roommate had helped when the Ex-chief had to do something for Saul, because his roommate was also a key member of the resistant group Saul was slowly expanding. He could now help with any cover story from the start. They were still going with Tyrol "would be recovering from drinking too much" whenever someone had stopped by looking for him at an inconvenient time. This was hurting Galen Tyrol reputation around the Camp still. But so far he had not cared about what other might think he was up to or not up to. Well, he had not voiced carrying about it to anyone who had talked to Saul about it. He made a note to make sure that he was happy. Tyrol tended to preform larger miracles when he was a happy camper. When he was not happy, he only preformed minor miracles for his people on an on call bases.

When Saul turned a corner, going around another grounded spaceship, and was closing on his target location. That was when he saw the roommate, standing in the doorway blocking easy access to the shack without looking like he was doing that. It was almost like he was on guard duty, giving the other man in the shared shack some private time with a member of the opposite sex. That was if your where of a certain age. What Saul noticed right off the bat? Was that it was a good place to watch people on the walkway lane, and not get your feet muddy while you were on watch. It was also a common pose with so little work being done around the area of any note. At least now that the cylons had clamped down on the humans again. A lot of people had a lot more free time on their hands lately, and very little entertainment. At least that had not been seen a hundred times before they made to this planet.

When it was clear that Saul was coming his way, the roommate made eye contact with the ex-military officer. The two men kept almost constant eye contact until Tigh was closer the stationary man. When it was safe to talk without being too loud, the roommate spoke first. "How is it going Saul?" The voice was pitched low, so that it would not carry far in the cold wet air. The watcher was not a military man, and had no problem addressing Saul Tigh buy his given name instead of his old military rank. This issue was now so common, that Saul had gotten used to this form of common address.

"I'm doing good Wayne, well as good as an old man can do on this cold and fraking wet rock." Saul tilted his head to one side. "Is the Chief in?" Saul had his hand out and the two men gave a forearmed shake. That was growing more in common use among warriors, and close friends on this planet than it had ever been back in Colonial space. It had already overtaken place of the salute, which would have been given on a year before. This type of hand shake also was not so prone to people Fraking up as a proper salute was prone to have.

Wayne looked around and nodded in the positive that the Chief was in the shack, and acknowledged that he had been keeping people out of the shack. Wayne's voice went a little lower, but not a whisper so that it would not carry too far. "He's working on something in private, but you should be okay to go in."

Saul did not give any hint, that he had no idea what Wayne was talking about. He just nodded his head up and down, and entered the shack that was there shared home. It was of the "normal" tent shack type thing. That had sprung up not long after landing, around and under the grounded spaceships. Everyone had been in a mad dash to get way from metal walls that had kept them alive on the run from the cylons, and have some extra elbow room. The shack was split into three areas that were more or less than six foot on a side. They each had a wood covered floor, and canvas drapes to split the three living areas apart, so that each was private from the other two rooms. It was about as standard of a shack as you could get on New Caprica.

This shack had plenty of power supplied by the ship behind the shack, and it was well lit. Surprisingly it was also was almost warm inside. But it did not need to have a fire burning inside to keep it warm like in other shacks around the camp. It was something that chief had put together, and he was well known to trade the heating units around the camp. It was just too bad that so few people had the parts and the access to enough power to run the device. Not to mention they lacked the items that the Chief had been looking for, as his payment for putting the device together for them. That item would have been rotgut he had so deep into. Now not so much, but he still did trade in the rotgut. It was helping to keep up his cover, even if he was not drinking that much lately. He was now trading it on the side to the medicos to help disinfect wounds, and medical tools. That was also what the roommate was going so that fewer people could see Galen doing the trading.

Saul heard movement coming from one of the side rooms separated by some off green blocking canvas. He walked across the cluttered center room, and pulled aside blocking canvass with one arm with an overly strong tug. Tyrol was so focused on what he was doing, that he did not hear the Colonel enter the shack. That is until the canvass movement past his back, which was a totally different kettle of fish. He about jumped out of his skin and spun around in his chair, to face the possible threat he now found in his proximity. Luckily it was only Saul Tigh standing at the entrance to his sleeping/ work area and not something more lethal, like say a cylon or something.

Saul had been in the military for long enough to know that when someone acting the way chief was, meant that they were hiding something. Normally whatever they were hiding was something that Saul most defiantly wanted to know about. Saul looked at Tyrol dead in the eye, and then used his right arm to push the shorter, but larger man out of the way of his line of sight. Now he could see the table/bed that the other man was trying to block the view of with his body

On the table was a mass of metal, plastic like stuff, wires, and circuit boards spread out over the length and breadth of the table. It looked like a tool box and spare parts bin had thrown up on the flat surface or maybe it was some strange cylon god, with the worst case of an upset stomach. It also took Saul a few long seconds to realize what it might be if it had been put back together. He looked at Tyrol and then back at the work area, and he schooled his face to stone. Saul did not know if he wanted it to be true or not. He looked back at the man again, and he could feel the hard pounding of blood in his ears, and he knew the vein on his forehead was starting to throb. He was fighting to keep his voice under control, the last thing he wanted was for someone outside to hear what he was about to say. "Okay Galen what have you been up to, and don't skip on the Fraking details this time." Saul pulled over the chair that the other man had hastily evacuated, and waited for the other man to talk about what he had been interrupted doing. To Saul it looked like, he might have been doing something that could jeopardize the relationship with the Earthers.

Galen Tyrol was looking down at the now seated Colonel Tigh. He had hoped that his little project would have been kept quiet, at for a lot longer than it looked like it would. Like until when he was sure, that it was going to work…. or not. Then again, he would have like to keep it out from view. Until like he was sure that everyone might not be upset at what he had been doing or could be convince that it was okay. He knew he might get into trouble, but the technology behind what he was working on? Well it was just too breathtaking, to at least not try to figure out how they did it what they were able to do.

Now Tryol was having second thoughts about the whole idea, judging by the looks he was getting from Colonel Tigh. "Well I had better get this over with." Tyrol thought to himself then looked at his old boss and worked out what to say. He took a huge breath threw his nose and started to talking, lucky he had taken the time to war-game a few lines out. "Well Sir when I was at the Settlement everyone was walking around with Direct Energy weapons on their hips or across there back. Frak most of the people had two or three of the things on them at all times, that they were outside of their cabins. It was like they were just another hunting rifle, or paintball pistol to them. So I got one and brought it back with me. Now that I have so free much free time on my hands, I wanted to see if I could figure out how they worked."

Saul's eyes got very narrow as the EX Deck Boss talked. Saul put one hand on the table, and the other hand was slowly moving towards the concealed double barreled pistol under his coat. Stealing had gone from being a very petty crime back on the home planets, to a very serious one on board the escaping human ships. Here planet side, stealing was still a capital crime. And it was a crime that was handled very publicly when the punishment was given out to the person convicted of the crime. It still happened from time to time, but the thieves now had to be very good or very lucky to keep at it for this long. That is, and still be able to still be walking around among the living. Saul locked eyes on the man that had finally stopped talking, and was standing slightly rocking from side to side. Saul had been fighting to keep anything from showing on his face what was going on in his mind. "So let me get this straight Mr. Tyrol. You decided to take one of these Fraking high tech weapons, and then you decided to take it apart. Because you wanted to see how they were able to make it tick? What do you think is going to happen, when these Earthers, find out that one of their high tech weapons is missing Mr. Tyrol?" The tone Saul used was dripping with disdain at the decisions making ability of Galen, had just put on display for him to see firsthand.

Tryol was waiting to get some kind of read on what Colonel Tigh was thinking as he explained his thinking. He had started to get uncomfortable when he notice Tigh was not yelling. In fact he had not said a word until he had stopped talking, that was very strange. "Oh God's that is a bad sign, he only use the Mister thing when he was about to rip my head off. And I'm not even in uniform anymore." This string of thoughts ran the mind of Tyrol at the speed of light. Then it hit him as soon as the last words rang in his mental ears. It was that the ex-Colonel had thought he had stolen the weapon from the Earther. Tyrol's eyes went huge as he realized what was going on. He knew exactly what Colonial Tigh would do to him, if he had stolen a weapon. It would not have matter who he had stolen the weapon from, the end would all be the same.

Tyrol's eyes went wide and he started to sputter. "Oh God's! No I did not steal it! If that was what you were thinking. I did not steal it!" Tyrol voice was going up in volume and it was just under the volume that you would have call yelling. But he was not making any saddened moves with his hands, or any other part of his body. "I did some work on the side for some of the Earthers, and used their payment chits to acquire his one weapon in the market place. I was told by the seller, that it was perfectly legal for me to buy it. Even after I made sure, that they knew I was a Colonial." Tyrol slowly turned and started to rummage around his little sleeping/work area, while he was talking over one shoulder. Luckily he did not need to reach into any closed drawers. "I have some paper work, which I had to fill out before the sale was final. It's all in strange scripted. But I even had it check out by one of the guys, I was working with on the project to see if a DARDIS could pick up this Radio of theirs. He said it was all good to go, and legal. I don't know who else, I should have talked to about it. No one thought it was odd, besides that I did not already have a weapon of some kind." Quickly Tyrol had found the single slip of paper he was looking for, and presented it to the Colonel for his review. Sweat was starting to collect under Tyrol's armpits and his forehead. In short he was about to freak out all over his little shack. That is if the Colonial did not shoot him in the next few seconds. As Tyrol waited he did not know what was going to happen first.

Colonel Tigh took and looked at the offered paper from the man, but he could not tell what the strange looking letters said. He put them on the table on top of some of the odds and ends parts spread out on the narrow table top. He made a few faces as he tried to make heads or tails of the rectangle sheets filled with black ink markings. Finally he gave up, but he did decide that he was not going to shot him as a thief, just yet. "OK Galen, so let me get this straight. They let you." He pointed at the man that was defiantly not wearing a uniform. "Buy a military weapon at some the market, like it was a sack of vegetables?" The tone was not a happy one, but it was more condescending than anything like really threatening. Saul was not conveying the disbelief very well, but the danger level was dropping with each word. "Then they let you bring it out with you. That is when they have not been willing to do that with any of us, so far. You know the leadership of our little town, when we have asked a few times now." Saul was waving his arms around to indicate the whole field of grounded spaceships.

Galen was getting that itchy felling he got sometimes when he was on thin ice, and it was not getting any thicker. No matter what someone words might be saying. "Well Sir, it's not like some of us have not spent time with these types of weapons before I picked this one up. You know that both Jammer and Duck both have used these weapons before. I know a few of the guys out there in the woods that have been using these weapons types, when they have been attacking cylons patrols. So some of our people are packing these things on their own, just none are there are here for now." Tyrol pointed to a wall of his tent. But he really was pointing to the wood line, and the groups of Colonials that had joined the fight outside of the camp against the cylons. Tyrol looked away from Colonial Tigh, and to his work space with weapons parts spread all over it in no discernible pattern to the untrained eye. He shrugged both of his shoulders, as he looked longingly at the parts and what they represented. "Besides they have really strong private property laws. And weapons, all the way up to tanks, their type of Vipers, and even warships are all considered private property items to them."

Tyrol gave a Saul weak smile. "But your right, I did not ask if I could bring it back into the camp with me, when I was coming back here. When I bought the thing, I did not know if I was coming back to New Caprica or not, back then." He was looking down at his mud covered shoes. But when he looked up again, he was looking at the other man dead in the eyes. He was not backing down one inch, and gave him a sly smile. "You said "Military" weapon. Sir this is not a military weapon. From what I was able to find out before I bought this thing. This is called a LP-20 pulse laser rifle. It's not looked at as a military grade weapon at all. It's more of a generic weapon, which is put out by and used by just about every little kingdom and militia unit back were they come from. It is look at as a…. more of a home defense weapon more than anything. It's like when we talk about a pump action shot gun or something like that. If you're going to have to do something, other than fight off a Centurion."

Saul rocked back in his chair, and looking at the canvas topped shack. That was so hard to believe what Tyrol had said. How could this group have so many Direct Energy Weapons? And that they were no more common, than a training pistol or a hunting rifle had been back the Colony? Saul started to scratch his ear, and he made a sourer face. After he weighted everything that had been said, and what he had heard about these people for others. Maybe Tyrol was right, and besides it would make Bill happy to know that they could get a few of these things in the future some time. Saul made sure to keep his face as still as possible, but he knew that his control was going to start slipping. "Okay. I want to keep the paperwork in anther cache site. That is just in case and to cover both of our butts. I don't want to lose both weapons and paperwork, all to one Frak up somehow. The weapon is yours Chief, but we may need some legal cover, if something bad happens when these Earthers find out that you brought back into camp with you." Saul now pointed one finger at the other man. "You had God's damn better make Fraking sure that we don't need that paperwork, or we might have to make an example out of you. Am I Clear Chief!?" Saul was deadly serious with every word he had said to Tyrol in the flattest tone he had used in years.

Galen Tyrol nodded that he understood what the formal XO of a BattleStar was not to subtlety hinting at by using those words. When the other man tilted his head at the other man, Tyrol knew that Saul was waiting for him to verbally acknowledge him what he was saying. There would be no room for ambiguity. "Sir, I understand. And I will hide it very well, when I'm not working on it. I also will do my best not make you have to use anything to provide cover from blow-back of me having the weapon here in the camp." Now that the threat or at least the possibility of being shot out of hand, was over. Galen gave a sly smile to the Colonel. "Now, did you want me to tell you what I found out about my baby so far?"

Saul smiled and it was almost a freighting look on his old face. It was like a predator shark saying "have a good day" to seal. Tyrol was always a knuckle draggier no matter if he was in a uniform, and on a Battlestars landing pods. Or if he was in a canvas tent on a world at the back of beyond being watched over by armed cylons. "Yes, Chief I would. What have you found out about this amazing weapon, you have had access to?"

Tyrol smiled and started picking up a pair of different parts of the disassembled weapon on the bed turned into a work table. He was almost done with the explanation what he had found about an hour later. It had started simple enough, but soon it went deep into fields that Tigh had no idea about. When it was over, at least for the near term, Saul smiled up at the younger man. But his brain was hurting like after a four day bender of drinking the dregs from his still worse run ever. "Chief it seems to me that your about to say, that you could make these type of weapons for us." He could not help himself, and had started to laugh in low tones as he finished the statement. The look on the other and younger man's face was priceless as soon as Saul had finished asking the question. Then Saul stopped laughing when he realized, that he might have hit closer to the truth with the offhand remark. Than any sane person would have both guessed or had wanted to be.

Tyrol looked back to the mass of parts that were on the table and bed. "Well Sir, the Mark VII Vipers uses a new fly by light systems. It also has some other things, that are made with the about same type of materials that some of this thing is made out of. If we had access to the Beast, and one of the Electronic repair ships, then maybe we could come up with something ground breaking. How powerful would it be? How much would it mass? How reliable would it work? What would the effective range be? I have no idea, at least not right now." He was shaking his head from side to side, and then his head popped up to eye lock the older man with a steady look. "I could do it. Now that I have seen how one works in some detail, it's now just a matter of time to match what we know, with a working example. Oh, and having access to the right kind of spare parts, but its work able. It should be just like the stealth star idea. Give me the time, some extra people, and the right parts, and I think that I can do it."

Saul threw both hands of his up in the air. His chair's front two legs of its four legs hit the wood floor with a bang, and his voice got loud in response to what Tyrol had said. "Are you trying to say that we could have man portable direct energy weapons, something the whole military and educational complex could not come up with? Are you Fraking kidding me?" When the last bit got back to Saul's ears, he started to kick himself as Tyrol gave him the sign to quiet down some.

Tyrol rocked back on his heals a little and rubbed his chin deep in thought now that the Colonel was under some kind of self-control. "Sir, I don't know about making something that can be carried by one person for any reasonable length of time. I was thinking maybe about starting with something that can be carried, and fired by a group of people, or more likely something with fixed mounted system and a with steady supply of power. I don't know even if it would be as powerful and a heavy hitter, as this thing is." Tyrol was pointing at the table top that was holding most of the guts of the pulse laser on display. "But it would be all ours and we could make more of them, as long as we could make more component parts. All we would need is access the right raw materials and the right ships. The only two problems, that I can see right now, are the battery power supply and some of the finer control electronics. I have no idea how the energy storage system they have works, much less how to make a replacement for one, with what I know about."

Tyrol pointed to object that he had called a standard E-clip. "I think I would have to hook it directly into a generator system go get it to work, but I'm only guessing right now." Tyrol stopped talking, and his eye went to the roof of his shack and almost rolled to the back of his head. Then after a few seconds, he started talking again at Saul, not to him. "Wait a second what if I hooked up something from a Jump engine battery or holding charge bank. But it would have to be smaller than the normally type used in even on the Raptor, or even the Stealth Raptor I put together. The weapons would be lighter without needing the super heavy gun barrels of a KEW. You might be able to get two into each of the KEW's mount on a Viper or Raptor. If I put the modified jump batteries were the ammunition and feed systems were in the wings, but they would still need to siphon power from the engines to recharge them to keep them in battle longer." He put his hands under his chin again and he had a glassy eyed look as he was lost in thought about making the Colonials first known DEW. "Why not have some way to charge them before launch, then as the batteries are using the power. Than some of the power from the turbos can be shifted to recharge the batteries for the weapons. That would extend the Vipers time in combat, since they would not have to worry as much about running out of ammo as running out of fuel for their craft. I know in combat most birds come back in with half or more of fuel left in the tanks. But they would have shot dry the ammo bins for the wing cannons. You could mix and match different versions of the Vipers, so that the enemy could know when our forces were going to have to come back to the barn for support."

Saul was gods smacked, and it was it whisper that next came from his lips. He did not want to scare away the idea that had just been given to him by the Chief. "Do you think it's workable?" Saul was thinking about a full combat load of Vipers coming off a BattleStar. In his mind's eye, each of those fleet footed little craft were armed with a pair of DEW's on each wing of the craft. They soon were blowing Raider after cylon Raider out of space, like they were made of the most fragile clay dish plate. A weapon like that could be a game changer, for the Colonial fleet or what remained of it. It was warfare on a whole new level, which Saul was thinking that even the gods had not thought of. It was so intoxicating that he was lost in time, thinking about it.

Tyrol shook his head up and down, and started to reach for a thin pad of Earther supplied paper sitting on his desk. "I have got to write that one down before I forget it. That one is a really good one, if can get the time to put theory into hardware." Tyrol had heard what the other Colonial had said, but he needed to get his last set of idea on paper, before he forgot some of the details. That had happen before and it had taken months to refined all of the details he forgot to write down when he had first had the idea

Saul waited until the younger man finished writing some things down on the pad of paper. This was not a short amount of time to wait. And Wayne, the outside guard, had checked in twice on the two men as they now sat quietly in the shack. Before returning to his watching location each time, when Colonel Tigh waved him away with one hand jester that said things were okay. Saul took the free and quiet time to have some deep thoughts of his own. He was thinking about all the application of DEW mounting on Vipers, Raptors, and Battlestars would give him. It was a pleasant day dream, as those images filled his time. He had not had many days where he could just sit back and enjoy a few enjoyable daydreams.

When it seemed that Tyrol was done writing on the odd shaped paper, Colonel Tigh was ready to go back to the subject that he had come over to talk with him about in the first place. But Saul needed to check one more thing before he went back to that line of talking. He needed to find out something that had had been asked but not answered, yet. He rocked back in the cheap homemade chair, and interlaced his fingers behind his head. All of the time, he was still looking directly at Tyrol when he finally spoke. "So Tyrol, how do you think that you can do something that, which the entire Colonial military and industrial base could not do? But you can also do it by just using what scraps we could grab to help us escape from the cylon attack?" Saul was not putting Galen down; so much he wanted as much information as he could understand on his problem. Deep down Saul, knew, that he was going to be asked a thousand different questions, which he was not going to have any of the answers for. He was pretty sure this one was going to be in the Top 5 that were going to be asked of him in the next few days to weeks.

Tyrol looked around the room, but the only chair with in sight was occupied by the Colonel. Tyrol sat on the wood floor as gracefully as he could, but so that he could have his bed close to him. He put his elbows lightly on the weapons parts covered table. He had not wanted to risk damage any of the parts by putting his fat butt near any of the possible fragile parts. "I think we were on the brink of breaking through on this type of technology, before the cylons came back. But with the help of this baby." He tapped the parts on the table again, with his right hand lightly so that they were not disturbed that much. "I am now able to see a way to do the task, which I know that already works. I can do this without having to test, test, retest, and then ask for more money and do it all over again for a decade of three. Besides knowing something can be done and not some kind of fantasy, is half of the battle of development of anything, which is such a new product."

Saul had something else to think about. This was important, very important, but it was not something they could do in a cave under the watch of those Fraking cylons. Well I better just ask to see if he wants to volunteer again or not. I can "what if" this thing to the fraking stars explode. "Good job there Mr. Tyrol, but I have another mission for you. We can't order you to do this, but Captain Kelly and his crews have a fraking Starbuck level of a crazy idea. They need someone with your skills, and knowledge to see it is workable or not. What they need to know about the different ships in the fleet, and what they might be capable, or in most cases not capable of doing." Saul stopped talking, and looked closely at the younger man, and made an "I just bit the inside of my cheek" face. "Are you interested? Or do I need to try to find someone else to try to do the job. I know you want to work on this project." Saul pointed to the parts around him on the duel use table/bed. "But what you need to think about, is this place the best place to be doing this type of work right now? Or is there some place else that would work out better, and or safer?"

Tyrol's head jerked up. What would they need from him? The more time he spent time with them the more, he realized that the Colonies of Man had a huge hole in their knowledge base. He had been around the world of the military enough, to know that you should not volunteer for anything. At least without knowing more about what they wanted, not what they told you. But what they really wanted, or what could happen to you while he was doing the "volunteering" in the first place. "Okay Sir, what exactly do you want me to do? I would rather keep working on this if you know what I mean, even if it's not the best place in the world to do the work."

Saul laughed and rocked back on the back to two legs of his wooden chair again. "Well what they want to know from the dozen lines they sent to us today. Is that they have this Fraking idea to check out underwater caves to hide out ships in, from any low overflying cylons that might come to visit. Now what I would like you to do, without getting caught, is to find out as much about their technology as you safely can. I don't want you to risk getting them mad at us, and pulling any support from us. But we still don't know that much about them. If you can find out more things about them, then lets us know about it? Well that would be better for us both in the short term, and any long term plans that might be put together. Help them, but also help us with some intelligence gathering on your spare time. We need intelligence, but we don't want to risk alienating them."

Tyrol smiled back at the old Colonel and tried not to laugh out loud or in his face. "Let's see, hot or at least warm water every few days, all of the fresh fruit I want, oh and they have soap. I can eat and I don't have to worry about cylons popping in to check on me at any time they want day or night. I can also have access to things that are an engineer's wet dream, any time in want or can justify with the flimsiest excuses? I might even be able to work on studying there battery and E-clips technology that they use every day." He stopped talking, and threw his hand up into the air. "So when do you want me to leave?" Tyrol had left out the part about the mission of reporting back Colonel Tigh and for all intents and purposes, he was spying on the small group of Earthers on the other side of the planet.

Saul stood up and out of the wooden chair. "First take care and hide these things really good. There would be Frak all of trouble if the cylons found this. And then worked, what seemed you have done in a few weeks." He collected the papers, folded them nicely and put them inside of his coat that would keep them from getting wet. "I will take this give it to Roslin. She can keep it safe for you, better than anyone else in this Fraking up place. I want you first in line at the tunnel tonight and ready to make the run to the tree line. Can you be ready by then? I don't know long you're going to be gone, but I would suggest that you still pack light."

Galen reached under the bed/table and pulled out a rucksack that had never seen the Colonies of Man, and did a quick check of its contents and with a slight nod of his head. "I can do that. You will have to help Wayne covering, if anyone asks for me. I don't have any projects due, so no one should be looking. At least not that I know off. But I don't have time to put on a "show" to set up the story." Galen was smiling, and now had a sudden burst of energy at the very idea of sneaking out from under the cylon's noses again. After putting the backpack down, his hand started reaching for small parts and he was as absently mindedly putting them together.

"Good, we can do that while you gone. Besides I was told that you are a high priority for these Earthers." Saul had an answering big grin on his face. He had been told more than once about the hover cycles, which was used for high speed runs between Refugee camp and the Main support camp. From what he had heard a few of the old Viper and Raptor jocks. They were looking forward to getting on one at the first chance they could swing, while not being shot at. He had personnel talked to people how have had the dubious pleasures of riding on the back of one device. So far to a man they all had reported that it was not a fun experience to have to endure. In fact most who have ridden the things, have not wanted to do it again…..ever. Tyrol was one few of the ones who had ridden the death machines more than once, and had said that he had hated them still. He had compared it to almost being as bad as being shot down in a Raptor. That was something that had happened to him once, and knew that it was a good comparison. Someone else had compared it to be being strapped on to the outside of a Vipers wing, then doing some Nap of the Earth flying for a few hours.

Saul has leaning towards thanking that only people with a real death wishes or just broken in the head, would like the ride on one of these cycles. It sounded like Tyrol was about to have that lovely experience again, weather he wanted it or not. Saul did make a mental note not to say this to Galen, just in case that the thought might make him change his mind about going out the tunnel tonight.

Saul at first had thought that it might have been fun, but when he had Jammer and Duck over for a card game one night. Well both of the men had turned white when the subject of what it was like to ride one of those things during the day, and the absolute horror of doing it at night. Those expressions had told him all he needed to know. Saul might have like to ride one, if he was a few decades younger. He had been known as a Fraking nut case, when he as a lot younger man. Now, not so much. That tended to be what happens when you get older. You found a lot more ways to die, and maybe had even seen a few people go out doing the things. That you had thought might have been fun to try, at first. The trick of being able to get old, is living through the mistakes and just plan poor decisions of your youth.

Saul left the shack so that Tyrol could get ready for his trip outside of the wire. Wayne would have a full time job covering for the missing man, but Saul would make sure that he was taken care of for his effort. After being in the warm shack for so long. Saul had to button up his jacket all the way up to his neck, to keep his body heat in were it could do its job. It was a nice coat, and one that also had never seen the space controlled by the Colonial Navy. From what the note had said, it was that it would be proof against the built in weapons of the average Centurions. He still did not know if he believed the note or not, but it was a nice to wear a new coat again. Saul was not what they called a cloths horse, but he liked new things ever once in a while. Right now that was all he was carrying about as he walked down the wet path, between ground human crewed space ships. You had to enjoy the simple things in life, or when things got bad? You would not have that energy reserves to pull threw the hardships.

Saul spent the rest of the day walking and talking to people around the area, making sure that the metal Centurions could see him from time to time. He spent the midday meal with his wife in the shack they shared. It had not been that much fun for him, in any shape or form. He had to listen to her complain for an hour. It all was about, that they were not getting a big enough cut of the supplies, that were coming threw her floor. Ellen was blaming Laura for what she viewed as a slight for them not getting what she thought they deserved. All threw her vocal ranting and stopping around the shack. Saul did not want to tell her, that it was his idea about the dividing up of the supplies and not the ex-presidents. It was better just to let her vent in the safety of their little shack, and try to enjoy his hot meal.

Today was worse than normal, so he had to break out a bottle of decent rotgut. With that, she would shut up and pass out before curfew. Now he would not have to deal with her for a few hours, the next day would be bad when she awoke with a hangover. But tonight he would have some peace and quiet. Saul was also thinking that he might, should have done a few things differently. Like how now, he was wishing that he had put the tunnel into a different shack instead of his own. He could see danger on the horizon, and it had his wife's name all over it. If he had not truly loved her so much, he would have cut the bond long ago.

Now that Ellen was distracted with a medium sized bottle, Tigh wrote out a message that would be transmitted to Adama at the next scheduled time. He needed to let his friend and commander know, what his old Deck Boss had been able to work out about the Earther's Directed Energy Weapons. If the worse happened, in the near future. At least someone might be able to work out how, to make those wonder weapons Tyrol had been thinking about. Saul also wanted to tell him about the other group checking out their local caves, which just might be able to hide spaceships from the cylons. It seemed like an off the wall idea, but then again. So was looking for Earth and the thirteenth tribe after all of your home planets had been bombed back into the Stone Age, in the first place. Now, after that off the wall idea. They had found another group of people, who were not from the Colonies and they had found the now abandoned world of Kobal. So who was he to say, that something might not work out in the end? He would just collect whatever data and information he could, and then pass it along up the chain of command.

After writing out the messages, he left his now very drunk wife a lone in the shack. He doubted that she knew he left the shack, by the way she was cradling the bottle and still taking long slugs out of. He had to stop by a second shack first, before heading to the true target shack. He wanted to keep it safe, so for security sake. The transmitter would move two or three times a week and it never had a repeat stop to a previously used shack, yet. It also would never be near a cache, tunnel, local built radio, or any of the leadership residents. That way if one location was found out by the cylons, they would not lose two high value items in one shot of bad luck. Now it was set up that Saul would even not stop in the shack in person, but pass the note to a second person. Now it was prearranged, than yes he would be in the same physical locations as radio or transmitter. This person, than would take the note to the transmitter operator. If a message was waiting, he would pick it from the intermediary later at pre-assigned location. There was no new message waiting for him, and after the intimidate person walked passed Saul without making eye contact. Saul made his way to the school, and being careful that he was not being fallowed as he moved through the camp.

After Saul made his way there, he had to wait around a corner from the school tent. That was because two human form cylons were already at school, and they were escorted by five Centurions standing by the entry tent flap. Tigh did not want to get near those monsters, and sweat was visibly running off of his forehead in steady streams of salt water as he watched them. Saul used the time he now found on his hands, to pull out a book from one of the coat's pockets. He found an acceptable place, and sat under one of the grounded space ships and began to read the paperback book. A group of people were near a fire burning about ten feet away from him, so he could blend in with the local group without any problem. It would have looked like some kind of oxymoron, to have an open fire burning underneath a ship. That same ship, which had traveled between the stars for hundreds of light years. It could have almost been call neo-caveman or something.

Saul was deep into his book within seconds of getting comfortable. That had been one of the few good things, about getting out of the military. He now had been able to catch up on his long put off reading list of books he wanted to read. Not all of the books printed on that long list had made the escape, but enough had to keep him occupied so far. He was not so into the book, that he did not notice the cylons leaving the makeshift school as one group. Saul gave them a slow count to sixty. Before he put his book away back into a coat pocket, and walked the rest of the way to the school tent. More importantly he was walking to see who was inside of it, hopefully she still in one peace. The other reason for the book was to keep his mind from running away on him, while he waited.

Saul stopped outside of the tent and pulled the tent flap open with both hands. He looked into the one open space school, just to make sure he did not commit to entering the tent if cylons were still there. Inside the tent, it was not as bright as it should be, but it was bright enough for the tasks that had been asked of it. But it was warm and that was more than a lot of the kids could count on having when, they went back to their hovels tonight after classes had ended. Saul was surprise to see metal shipping containers stacked near the middle of the tent's main teaching area.

There were six large metal containers in all, laid out in three stacks of two containers each. Each of the containers were six feet long, four foot wide and four feet deep. People in the shipping business often just called them coffins, and it was just because of the size and shape of the containers, and not for what they sometimes were used for. They made perfect since for shipping companies, because it was about as long as someone could controlled without needing much in the way of power equipment. Laura had each of the top containers open, and was checking the contents with a list that she had been given. When the tent flap had opened, Laura knew someone had entered her domain. But she had stuff to do, and did not turn to see what lookie loos was popping in to see what the cylons had been up to. She waited till she came to a stopping point on her little inventory of the coffins before she would initiate any contact with who ever had entered the tent.

When Laura finally looked up and towards the tent entrance. It was a few tens of seconds, after he had entered and made she automatically had made face at whoever had disturbed her. Saul knew that she was at a spot of her choosing when she looked up. And she would not lose track of whatever, it was she was doing before he entered the tent. That did not mean that she was in the mood for any kind of company. "So Roslin, someone drop presents off for you? I did not know it was Founders Day, or did I miss count my days or something again?" He just could not help it, sometimes he just had to pock the bear, to see what would happen. Some thought it was just genetically ingrained function of his twisted mind.

She smiled but the act did not touch her eyes, not one little bit. "Yes Saul, our favorite jailers stopped by and left some items for us to use." She pointed around her at the metal coffins filled with what Saul had no idea what. Some heat started to color Roslin's voice and a torrent of words fell out. "Some of the stuff came from the home planets. I recognized some of the markings of the printers, and I know that they nuked the Frak out of those areas. I had told them to take those containers right the Frak away, as soon as I saw the markings. I told them I did not want radioactive items in my camp much less in my school with little ones around them!" She gave a soft laugh with a touch of crazy mixed in for good measure. "For machine they can be slow on the up take sometimes. They had not even thought we would be concerned by radioactive fallout from their bombs. Like on things they might be giving us out of the goodness of their circuits. Those Frakers even said, I was over reacting!"

Laura threw her arms into the air, as her anger worked its way out of her body. "They sent one of the guard machines to get a Colonial military radiation detector to prove to me, that it all was all nice and safe. They were surprised as all Frak, or they looked like it any way, when some of the stuff was reading that it was still hot." The woman held up both of her hands and makes little movements with two fingers on each hand, when she said the word safe. Even if she had not made that gesture. Saul knew this women long enough, to know that she did not trust the items to be safe at all. They might not be deadly right now, but they still could be dangerous to them in the short or long term. She would go through every book and page of paper, and have the coffins dragged out of her tent. That would all be done, before she would not think that they were no longer dangerous.

Saul looked around the tent again, and for a quick second had second thoughts about not leaving tent in fear of what was left of his life. He was a career military man, and as such had spent a lot of time in high rad zones. He did not like the idea of being in another one, without lots of medical care that they did not have access to now. It was only a passing thought, sort of. "So what did our benefactors leave you?" He was not talking about the ones that were hiding on this planet. He only phrased it that way in case someone like the Number One called John was listening in on them via one of the containers that had been dropped off.

The old come new school teacher looked at the list that she was still holding in her hands, and then went to each of the opened metal containers. She had understood the question and had not batted an eye when it was asked. "We have the basics non electronic supplies needed for a full below High School education set up in rural area. That is writing paper, pens, colored pencils and the like. We have a selection of spelling books, math books, reading books, and some basic science books. We also have some basic medical supplies and vitamins. All in airtight containers with the seals still intact and amazingly not expired yet. About the only things we are missing subject wise, is any vocational training items." She stopped talking and raised one eye brow.

Saul was surprise at the list she had just recited to him, and it showed on his old craggy face in a wide eye and jaw open way. The surprise was at the massive list of supplies, and because of what Roslin had not said along with the look she had given him. "That sounds like quite a haul Roslin. So why do you look like someone killed your young daggit in front of you or something?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

She put the object, a book of some kind, which she was using as a clip board down into one of the open shipping containers. "What we are missing are High School level and higher level math, science and all of the history, as well as any of our Religious books, and the basic legal or civics textbooks are all missing." Now Laura tilted her head to onside, hoping that Saul would not understand one of the reasons she was upset today.

Saul picked up something with the last little bit of information and tone, and he did not have to analyze the look she was giving him. It was something in the tone that was not normal from Roslin to us. More to the point, it was not a tone that she had used on him before. Then he replayed, it in his head what she had said, and it clicked like a light bulb coming on in a dark room. "You said "Our Religious" books. What did you mean by that? You don't just use any old word, unless you mean it to use it in a certain way. Roslin, I'm old please tell this old Daggit all the points and connect the dots, if you would."

The look on her face was not nice, it was more like she was thinking about blowing someone out an airlock…..again kind of look. "Oh a Religious book. We have about 40 copies of this." She almost threw the book at Saul, hard. But it ended up more of a strong toss, than a line drive by the time her arm was full extended.

Saul was able to pick the three inch thick book out of the air without an issue, and spun it so that he could read the title in one smooth motion printed on the spin. He had never heard of this book before, but it did not take him long to figure out what was the subject was. Now it was his turn, to turn red and get a little bent out of shape. "Well Frak me! How in the Gods name did they have this printed and bond? He dropped the "How to be a good Monotheist" book on the ground like it was a live and very deadly snake. Well more to the point, like it was a hand full of fresh daggit scat in his nice fresh bag chips.

Laura raised an eyebrow at the reaction of the military man. "I was asked to teach from that. It was not an order, but it was hinted very strongly that if I did not. Then no more teaching or school supplies and maybe medical supplies would be coming from the cylons ever gain."

Saul got bigged eyed, and flipping between looking at the book on the floor, and the only known qualified human teacher he knew of in what was left of the human race. "You're not going to teach that Frak up stuff, to our kids are you are you?" Saul touched the dropped book with his mud covered boot, to reinforce what he was talking about. The look of discuses was plastered from bold head, to jaw touching chest.

A hurt look crossed the teachers face in a flash that soon returned the angry red color of a few seconds before, and her voice boomed out louder than she had wanted it to. Well boomed for her any way. She was not normally a yeller by nature, design, or by training. "NO, I am not!" She gave him a half smile, and she fought her voice back under her control. "I told them that I was not well versed in that subject, and I could not teach something without being trained on it first. I told them that I would have to have some kind of lesion plans made up for it, before I could stand in front of the class trying to cover the material."

Now Saul was very confused, and he wore it on his face. He felt like he was missing something again, then deiced the Frak with it and speaks his mind. He let an odd smile come to his face. "So you're not going to teach it? Well then we have something to help start the warming fires with then." His face broke into a huge grin. Finding firing starting materials for the fires, was always a problem that was right up there with finding toilet paper.

Now Laura let out a loud sigh, and shook her head side to side slowly. "No we can't Saul. I have to leave them out so if anyone wants to become more, well versed in that subject, they can do so. I can push off teaching this crap for some time, but I can't throw it out with the rest of the Fraking trash. No matter how much I want to. The Frak of it, is that I was never into teaching or even keeping the Religious classes going in Colonial schools before the attack."

Saul looked down at the book, but he made no move to pick it up off of the wooden floor. "Well Frak. We do need the supplies." He looked around at the chest of items, and wondered how may spy devices were buried in them somehow. "Laura you're about to stroke out. Why don't you come get some hot food in you? This all will wait until you get back, I don't think anyone will steal it while you're gone." He was pointing at the containers then put the tip of one finger to cover his lips, to stop her form saying something that might be very bad for them. He had been willing to talk about some things, and let his feelings so freely. If he had not then, the cylons might become suspicious again.

After they left the tent behind them. They spent the rest of the trip, which was the longest way around to get to a food tent talking. He used the time to bring the women up to speed, on what Tyrol had been surprising doing in his shack. She had a few concerns about the weapon that Tyrol had been working on, but it really was not her area of experience. Saul also let her know that the box might have a few spy devices in them. He told her about, how that had been how he had tracked a pirate group not long after the First Cylon war had ended. He gave her a few pointers of where to look, and what they might look like. After few minutes, it was decided that maybe she could use an extra pair of hands. They worked out a few different ways to use the supplies as effective as possible, which the cylons might have not planned on.

The little electronic device in one of the cases detected that it was finally alone, and decided that it was safe. So it transmitted the recorded information it had picked up between its last downloading transmissions. The information went straight to Basestars office that John was working in. The device had been the idea from one of the other Number One's. And it had been put in three of the boxes, by a member of the Number Two line. John was almost giddy for a few seconds, when the systems let him know that the basestar had received the expected transmission. That happiness did not last long. A Centurion went on alert 100 ft. down the same hallway as the John's command room. Its audio receiver had pick up the sound of the screaming coming from the room with only one cylon used. This was surprising, and a note was made to send to maintenance. That room was normally sound proof, just like the One's had order it to be. If john had normal any furniture near him, he would have broken it all against the wall of the tank that held the cylon interface. As it was, all he had to throw was the wet goo inside the interface tank itself. All of that work had turned up nothing over the next three days. That was when the last device was found by the humans, and rendered nonoperational by what sounded like a hammer strike to its small but very powerful microphone receiver.


	24. Chapter 24 chp 15 plan moves forward

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and I have used them for this story.

I'm still looking for a Beta reader and help, no one has come forward yet.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 15 The plan moves forward**

 **New Caprica, 737 Days after the Fall of the Colonies, 3 years 5 month AT**

Ten days later, a meeting was going on aboard the Neptune's Revenge's main meeting room. The three leaders of the Settlement were present, the First officers or XO's from both ships, two members from the military, and two people that would take notes for publishing to the Net. Those last two also had an additional duty, which was to act as neutral sources. The briefing was going to be in two parts, with a total of six briefs to be given to this group of power players. The first part of the briefing was going to be given by Dexter, and the Colonial named Tyrol. The second briefer would be from the military, to describe some changes that had happen over the last few days. The meeting had been announced to the public almost 36 hours ago, and it had stirred up a lot of interest around the village. As had been expected. Almost everyone was in the assigned briefing room, fifteen minutes early. The three leaders of the Settlement, where the last to enter the room and once seated the briefing began with in a hand full of seconds of them taking their seats.

Dexter was the lead briefer because it was felt that his was the most important for everyone to know about, and as meetings went long. People tended to lose interest and/or forget the finer parts of the detail on the last briefings in a meeting. Why was Dexter going to be doing most of the talking for the pair? The simple reason, was that all though Tyrol's ability to pick up the strange language was amazing to most people. He still was just not that great with its finer use, and a lot of people could not understand him with his Colonial accent on English based words. This was not the time to have something like that happen, and a misunderstanding could get out of hand quickly. Dexter stood up besides the briefing podium and nodded to Tyrol who hit the button. Now the first slide would be displayed for everyone to read on wall to his left.

Dexter looked at his notes then just started verbally to roll down his notes, one bullet point at a time. He had the notes memorized already, looking down was just to help him focus on the information and not the people to his front. All of the time he was thinking in the back of his mind, was how good a drink might taste right about then. "I was contracted about ten days ago by Captain Kelly to do a survey of all the underwater and near water line caves in our area. This was done with the idea, that maybe they could be used to hide the Colonial Ships for the AI machines or cylons. That are so Hell bent, on killing off all humans. A message was sent to what remained of the Colonial military planet side, and they sent Chief Galen Tyrol to act as an SME and representative for them." Tyrol held up his hand on cue, so that if anyone did not know him. Then now, they would be able to do so now, and hopefully remember him later.

Dexter nodded to Colonial seated beside him and gave him a cocky smile that was returned. "We did not wait for him to make his way all the way to our part of the world, before we started looking around under the waves. As most people already know, this area is riddled with single caves. We think they were made by massive number of old lava tubes, and that they maybe are even connect into a truly massive connected cave system somewhere." As he talked images of the now already in use caves with everything from a shipyard to working mines was displayed with descriptions of each image to help explain what they were looking at. "We did know that the Colonials have 114 vessels and the rough base measurements for some of them. What we did not know till we talked to Mr. Tyrol was that about two dozen ships cannot land on a planet at all. They were built in the void between planets, and they will never touch land again." He gave a soft smile to take the sting out to the next few words he had planned on delivering. "That is unless they are being shot down, or a not so minor engine issues and they were pulled out of orbit by gravity of a planet. Now we have found about a dozen caves underwater that Mr. Tyrol has said will work, and more are being found each day by my two teams. We are given each of the hide sites names of the ship or ships, if it is big enough. That we think would fit best that hiding site."

Dexter took a breath before he started talking again. "The working list is posted for review with a comment section." The next image to display was a map with each location mark with names and different color circles. But the image also had a few red rectangles without names. Dexter pointed to one with his light pen. "What we found is that we have these areas." Dexter pointed to each of the red areas. "These are very flat spots on the ocean floor, which might have been made by collapsing caves. They also have large and thick overhangs to provide cover from DRADIS scans. These C shaped areas are also usable, according to Mr. Tyrol as hide location also, but that is not going to be my team's call." He looked around the table and room. "All of these sites are in our Bay. What I would like to do now is expand our search. I would like them to be running up and down the coast at the same time. I will need all of the subs that we have operational and crews to do this task in anything like a timely manner. If you open the briefing folder in front of you. You will see what has been planned out as far as a schedule, and the expected cost of tripling the area that we can cover for a given time." Dexter stopped talking as people around the room open the addressed folder.

What most of the people in the room did not know was that Captain Kelly had help with that information, to add some polish and pop to Dexter's and Tyrol's brief. When the control of the scouting operation was transferred, today to the leadership of the Settlement. There would only be one major charge in how that operation was running. That would be that Dexter and his work crews would now be paid out of the Settlement coffers. More to the point, any other items of value that were found by those teams would be turned over for the good and management by the Settlement governing body. That was perfectly okay for these two men who had been the primary backers of this startup operation. Before the second day of work on the task had started, Dexter had notified Kelly that he would like to pay forty percent of the cost of the operations. With his labors, and cover the other ten percent of the cost. Dexter and Kelly became equal partners within hours of the digital message being sent.

Even though the pair had spent heavily over the last ten days, all of it coming out of their own pockets. They had found some useful exploitable materials, but it would cost them dearly to develop some of those impressive finds. In the end the rights to those valuable finds equally belong to the two of them. Both of the men did not want to over extend themselves, or be greedy to hold some many unused mining rites, but not have enough money to exploit any of them in a timely manner. They had other drives, besides making a bucket load of money. Each of the sites they had found would be registered on the network, and would be posted as it belonging to the pair. That is except the sites, which had been found that might be used as hide sites by the Colonial spaceships.

Anything found there would automatically go to the slowly growing pool of resources to make life better for everyone with the funds they generated going directly in the Settlement overall budget. With the change of leadership and funding for the scouting and surviving mission. Now if something very good was found, now even if the government did not spend a dime on the development. The budget would get half of the value of the find, even if someone else extracted the items. It was a modification of the old salvage laws from back home, and so far it had worked out well for everyone that had used them. It was not perfect and the rules about how to do this ran about twenty pages long, and was slowly growing.

Dexter closed his meeting after taking a half dozen questions from the room, he then announced who his fallow on briefer would be. After giving the assembled group time to find the next file, and do a fast review. The second briefer displaced the first two men at the head of the table. Rex was acting as the fill in for the next briefer today, but he was only the mouth piece for the data. That was because the writer of the brief, had been Major Weston himself. The Major had a standing excuse given by the Triumvirate to handle more important items that had risen up lately, and the Major could not make a meeting. So it would fall on someone else to do his briefing today.

Rex took a breath and tried not to seem as nervous as he felt on the insides. "There has been a change in how the Cylons are operating close to the refugee camp. They have already stopped using small group ground patrols. They were working in team or squad size, when we first had encounters with them. Now all patrols are a Cylon company unit or larger with a spacing of no more than six feet between any one cylon while on patrol. We know have intelligence that states that each Baseship or Basestar as they are called. Has one Regiment of ground fighting Centurions and human form cylons on each of the four of capital ships, when they came in system." When Rex looked up from his briefing notes, and saw the blank looks from most of his audience. He knew they did not get the significance of that little bit of information he had just put out to them. "With each Basestar having about 2560 Centurions not counting Raiders, Heavy Raiders and Human form cylons. And that is only the active components on each ship." He gave a deep sigh then continued speaking. "Each of these Basestars is an invasion force all on its own, that it can call down onto the defenders of any planets. The ground force in orbit is what the Colonials called a full cylon combat brigade, and they drop this any time or any were, they want to put those troops on the ground." Rex stopped talking for a second to mentally review numbers that were not in his written briefing notes. "That is over 10,000 shooters on the ground, and that is not counting the replacement bodies on each ship has on hand to download any cylons disabled on the field. It also does not count the overhead fire support cover, that is provide by the Raiders and larger Heavy Raider class ships the capital ships have on hand." Now Rex could see the information sinking in, as eyes went wide now that all of the dots had been connected for them. Rex was mental betting with himself, that here would be some issues when those numbers were released to the general public. He did not think that it would be that bad, the people from Rifts Earth had evolved in a few odd ways from what they were like in the Golden Century.

The room was quite; deathly quite so when Kelly looked around the table without turning his head he knew he had to say something to snap people out of what looked like some growing depression. "Well now we know why, the Colonials called them Basestars don't we. I'm just glad there ground fighting tactics are so bad. Do we have any idea how many we have taken down to date, and how many might have been on that supply ship as replacements?" These where all valid statements, plus it was a way to remind everyone that they had taken down truckloads of them already. All they needed to do was go looking at the scrap pile, which was filled with their parts.

The room seemed too lightened up after that commit from the Captain, so Rex took the time to look for a side note. He had a sly grin on his face, in understanding exactly what Captain Kelly had done. He hoped that he could add a few worthwhile quotes to what had just said. "Yes Sir. Major Weston said, that it was like the guy on the other side. Had learned how to fight wars in a book, and not a well written book at that. We know and confirmed that we have taken out over a thousand cylons so far. And those are the ones that should not have been able to download into a new a hulk that the Basestars have on hand. We don't have hard numbers on the number of new ground fighters that supply ship brought in. It is thought that it was about that number, but maybe a little less. We were not able to get an image of the cylon support ship, and the Colonials could not identify the ship with our descriptions alone. Major Weston is calling it a push for the numbers of ground fighters that cylons still have access to, for now."

Rex had to stop his brief to take a few questions now that some of the people in the room had regained their legs. After a few minutes he was able to get back to giving out new information. "From a few reports that have come in. It is that the cylons were focused on bring in other large items with them on this supply trip besides more fully active fighting units. The reports are confirmed, that every cylon we take out with ION based weapon does not come back with a new body. Plasma and Laser Weapons do the same thing, but it's not a hundred percent grantee of stopping them from "Down Loading", but its scares them. Over ninety percent of the primary weapons in the field by Settlement personnel, are now ION firing based weapons. The Colonials are mostly still using primarily projectile weapons, but more are getting ION based weapons on loan. The major issue has been getting them trained on how to us them, and preform basic maintenance on those weapons." Rex had to take a few seconds to get something to drink. He was not use to talking this much, much less to this large of a group.

With his throat wet again, Rex went on with his prepared brief. "Anyway the larger sweeps as Major Weston is calling them. Have limited the number of areas that the cylons can be at once, granted they are covering a huge area. It has been identified that to cover the holes in their large sweeps. The Cylons are using Raiders and Heavy Raiders to overfly the gapes at random intervals. Major Weston and his staff are working on different plans to counter this new development. He has a few ideas that he is going to try out in the next few days. His primary concern, is that he wants to make sure that we are not being suckered somehow into some kind of ambush. He has sent in a formal request, so that he can use up to ten percent of his stockpiled expendables munitions in the next few weeks."

A murmur went around the room that caused Rex to stop talking for a couple of seconds. When it did not get any louder he continued. "But he briefed me that he does not plan on using anything larger than mini-missiles and rail-gun rounds, at this time. Major Weston just would like to have a backup plan ready with all of the approvals done. That it might require for our people to fight to their best abilities. He will be waiting on your decision before executing any change in plans, which you have already approved of before today's briefing." Rex left the podium and return to his seat against the wall, without taking any more question from the group in this room. If you were close enough, you might could have heard him sigh. When he finally felt the chair's seat under his bottom. He knew that his part of the meeting could have gone a lot worse, but he still was glad it was over. The sinking feeling he had in his stomach, was that he was betting he would have to do this again in a week, if Major Weston could not make it.

All three members of the Triumvirate thanked god again, now that they had all of those long range self-powered radio re-transmitters. They had one compete wireless communication system packed in there hulls, when they had left port on that fateful day. None of them could come up with a reasonable way to justify braking it out. That was why they had slowly developed the land line system they had used during their time in hiding. Now that the news that the cylons could not pick up on Radio transmission had been repeatedly confirmed. They had been using them often, but they still like using the hard lines for more sensitive things or non-time critical reports. This message was time sensitive, so the one word reply would be on the Major's desk in a few seconds maybe a minute tops after this meeting was over. The one word that would be sent was simply "agree". With the approval to use expendables, Weston could get his plans into operations the next day if he wanted to, or had the opportunity to do. This had already had been decided by the Trio, but the order could not be sent until the official meeting and request had been brought up.

With those major briefs out of the way, the more mundane schedule briefs could now take place. Kelly did not rise from his chair as the last scheduled briefer sat back down. "Okay I have a few updates to pass along. In case anyone had not noticed. The defense upgrades being put in behind the palisades, have been completed. They now go all the way around the Settlement living and working areas. It was modified about a dozen times, I think. But it looks like we are done, until we get any information what may dictated a needed change or redesign… again." The people in the room all chucked, because the truth was. That it had been modified a few dozen times, and they all knew it in way to much detail. "It is now designed to withstand a mass assaults by cylons with what they call heavy weapons on the ground. That will not stop the cylons from doing some kind of air assault operation with those Heavy Raiders carrying ground troops. But that would still be very bloody for them, to try that move on us. That does not mean they won't use that method of attack. This was foreseen and planned for. One of the uses that all the salvaged metal was spent on, was to complete underground shelters under all of the major buildings in our little village. The only buildings that do not have one of those bunkers, are the smaller single family homes."

Kelly stopped talking and looked around to everyone in the room. "As of today, we have enough space in those bunkers for everyone in the Settlement, or in other words our entire population. We have even go a ten percent buffer space for those "What If's" that might happen down the road. Also all of the caves that we are officially using have primary and secondary blast doors made from high damage resistant concrete on any access points, so that was another big hit on our metal storage. Those walls and doors have helped camouflage those assets from any unwanted eyes that might fly over. Our planned goal is to have a twenty percent overage for personnel shelter place. After that number had been reached, we will have to deice if we need to build more or not." After all of those numbers of cylons, having people know that the leadership was looking out for them should be a good thing.

Kelly looked back at his notes in front of him, before looking back up to address the room. "The next item on my little list, is food." A light groan went through the room, as they reacted to the next subject that Kelly was planning on talking about. "Yes, yes I know. But it has to be put out, so that everyone can see how that part of your life is going. A city only lives, if it can feed itself." Everyone hated this part of any briefing, and that was one of the reasons that Kelly always was the one to do this hated part of the briefing. Kelly hated given the brief, almost as much as most people hated to hear it. However Kelly knew that if people were worried about where their next meal was coming from. Than it could cascade into other, more violent issues with very little warning.

After the round of mumbling stopped, Kelly continued. "In the Growing food department. We are doing very well, even with us supplying fresh food that is going to the Colonial fighters and what can be smuggled into their refugee camp. They are doing so well, in fact. That some individual groups have been storing extras as seeds for future use. The Triumvirate would like to take a public vote, to increase the amounts of grown food we have put into long term storage. We would like to go above the levels that we had when we first came here. The vote will be held in four days, and open to all eligible voters no matter their current locations." Everyone knew that they only reason they had survived that first year on this planet, was because of the food stores on the two ships. Those food stores had been severely depleted, and due to the cooler weather on this planet. Replace those consumed food stores had been a long, hard trudged to just get them to the level that they had been. That was before there run in with the slavers back on Earth.

Kelly looked around the room again. When the prices of fresh food had first started to drop, the leadership had started to buy long time storable food. It had been to replace what had been on hand, and used to keep them alive till they could grow enough. When word had gotten out about that they were doing, it had caused some heated public meetings unlit it had been explained in extreme detail on why they were doing it. Now with the possibilities of a long war, or evacuating to an unknown location. Some odds and ends people had been collecting, and storing their own emergency food supply just in case things went badly. When soldiers did this, it was often referred to as packing your pogey bait before you went out into the field for training or war.

If the leadership was approved to buy and store more food on the open market. The price of some items might go up some, but it would also be a major security blanket available for everyone. Kelly had kept talking, but always watching the nonmembers of the leadership. "We", Kelly pointed to the two other leaders around the head of the table. "Have the pleasure to report, that the expedition to catch larger fish. Has returned to the cave, which they used to build their ship in. As some of you might know, they were damaged during their latest fishing run." It was apparent by some of the reactions he saw in the room, that not everyone knew about that little bit of news.

"No one was lost. A few had to medevac back to the medical bay on the Lucky Find, but the damage is repairable for both man and ship. From what I was told by their Captain before they left on this run. It was planned that this was going to be the last mission anyway, at least for a while. For the Settlement benefit, they were able to bring in four large animals that we have not seen before, to go along with some we have seen and tested before. They are taking care of processing them, but they hope to have almost 600 tons of meat ready, or soon to be read. Samples were taken, and are being tested as we speak. If everything goes well, we might have red meat on the menu again. Okay, in a few days we will." Kelly had to stop speaking because the room erupted with shouts and whistle at what he had said. Kelly put both hand up with the palms down, but he still had to raise his voice to be heard over the bedlam his news had caused. "Please, it has to pass all of the food test, before we allow it to be served on any plates." Kelly pointed a long thin finger at those in the room. "You all know what happened when someone, did not wait for the proper testing to be completed." Kelly looked around the room with a level gaze. He wanted everyone to remember what had happened. When someone had not waited for the tests to be done, so that it would not happen again. He was sure that his tone would be conveyed in any notes taken today.

It was a little while after they had been on this new planet. It might have been just at the six months mark after transport. It had happened when Captain Kelly had been out checking on the marker buoy. The one they had dropped near the site of the multidimensional rift that brought them here in the first place. While he had been gone, a family had been on the shore do some camping in the open air and some "fishing". When they had not caught enough to eat for the day, the elder of the group tossed an explosive device of some kind into the water. When the stun/dead "fish" came to the surface, one was of a new large type of a kind of fish like animal. The SOP said that they should have taken it to be tested, as soon as they pulled it out of the water. They did not do this, for some unknown reason or justification. Instead they cooked the large fish like animal on the beach for dinner that night. They were all dead by sunrise. They had not died peacefully in their sleep, but had slowly suffocated on the blood that slowly pooled in their lungs while they had laid down. They could not even shouted for help, only slowly drown on their bodily fluids. It now was a tail told to people ever year, to remind them that not all was safe on this new world. No matter what they might have been use to back home, this planet could kill you if it got the chance.

Kelly looked around the room and the smiles were gone, as everyone thought back to that dark day. Kelly let it set for a few more seconds before breaking out some more good news. "Now to change the topic away from food." This put smiles back on everyone's faces again. "The influx of refined metal alloys has helped out in another way, beside help with our defense and increases in food production. The machine shops, with the help from just about anyone that had the skills, have been working overtime. I know a few that I had to order to get some rest after working twenty hour days for more than a week, anyway. They have been able to turn out the parts, and the equipment needed to start large scale, at least for us it will be large scale, armor plate production." He turned his head so that everyone could see that he was smiling. "We have been using the armor patching machine that is on my vessel as the small scale model or template for this task. Now what does that means for those of us, including me, who are out of there depth in this area? In short. It is not going to be as fast or efficient, as the armor productions factories that are back home can be." Kelly had to keeping going to drive home more information into them quickly. "Before anyone asks why don't we make one like they have back home? We don't how they did it. We have some plans, but they are not complete. I happen to think that they are not even halfway complete plans."

Kelly was frowning now. That was not a pleasant surprise when we found that out himself one night. They still might be of use later on down the road, after the issues with the cylons were handled. "It might help later, but right now? They are not so much of a help. Now back to what we have." He let the smile come back to his face, after all this was good news. "The facility was but together in an empty cargo area on the Neptune's Revenge for now. It should have the first test run of a four foot by four foot section ready for testing by the end of today. They will be running weapons test on that sheet, and if everything breaks right? Then we could have full production going soon afterwards. The output might be up to four of the four by four sheets per day as the top end steady pace. That is as long as we have a steady supply of refined metal to feed the beast. If we have less supply, we will have less of an output." Kelly stopped talking because a round of unexpected applause had started going around in the small room.

When the applause slowly came to a stop, Captain Kelly continued with his part of the briefing. "What is going to be the bottleneck, as I said is going to be metal? That is both core refined metal, and special ores needed of the plate. Oh and to make nay replacement parts that the plant is going to need as we break it from usage. The plan right now is to stockpile the plates for sale or trade to the Colonial, but it can also be put up for sale to the general populous of the Settlement. I want to remind everyone, which this sale is still going to be some weeks down the line. And only if thing break all in our favor, if those things don't break all our way? Then we can expect that there will be delays of some kind in the near future."

The Captain of the Lucky Find now took over the briefing, now that Captain Kelly was done. The notes on his computer screen had told him that the part about needing more ores was the end of his part of the briefing. "Thank you Captain Kelly. I now open the meeting to questions." He looked to his XO, Sophia Ryan who would bring up questions that had been posted on the net by anyone and everyone that had computer access. The advantage was that the three leaders had read all of the questions, before this meeting and would not be caught that too flat footed.

She took a deep breath and without making eye contact with any of the three leaders at the head of the table. "To the meeting. I have four requests from Colonial Civilians, who would like to become citizens of full standing in the Settlement." It had been pre planned, for this to be the first question to be brought up it in the meeting. As expected it dominated the meeting deep into the day, and almost to the dinner meal. In the end it was decided to table the request for a later time. It was hopped to give people time to voice any issues, for or against the idea. Or come up with an idea on how to implement a policy to address this issue. That was expected only to grow in size as more and more Colonials made it out from under the cylons thumb. This could and would have ramification down the road with the Colonial leadership. But that was the far future, and they had a lot to do to be able to live through this week.

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The meeting going on in one of the hulls of metal, in the Settlement. It would be little surprise that it was not the only meeting going on that day on this hidden planet. Half way around the world, John had to explain certain items to a meeting with all of the human form models that were in this system were present for. Most of the other models were not happy to be there, for a whole list of different reasons. It was the very definition of a hostel work place briefing, both for the briefer and the ones receiving the brief.

John was setting down in a chair and sulking even before the meeting had started. He had been called down to the planet's surface from his now preferred location, aboard his Basestar. That did not mean that he was in space all of the time. But he only came down every other day or so, for a six to eight hours before heading back into space. The thought of what he had been doing on those, trips down the gravity well brought a slight smile to his pale face.

Each of the models of human form cylon was present, with the official count of six individual from each line in the large room to receive the brief in person, and ask any questions that their lines had. As John was looking around the room filled with human forms, his mind was chiding him. Every other human form would be getting a data "feed" from this room, in real time. "I wish they would just stop there yammering. What do they think this is, a family reunion or something?" This was the primary thought John had to himself, as he ran numbers and odd in his augmented mind. He was successfully in distracting himself. That he did not hear it, when a question was asked directly at him and not to just one of his line that were standing nearby.

"Well are you going to answer us, our not?" Asked the representative from the human form Model Six's cylons, and her tone was dripping with venom with every word that left her red colored lips. That venom was directed with all the force that the purple haired female had, at the Number One called John.

John looked up and over to the noise maker standing about a dozen feet from his seat. He loaded his tone with an equal amount of disdain to match her venom ounce for ounce. "I'm sorry, I was thinking about something important." John added a sneer to the tone. "You know, like the mud on my shoes. What did you say again?"

The Six was not happy with the put down, John had just delivered. And her whole line, was just as upset by his statement. "What I asked? Is that according to our information, we are losing on average thirty Centurions a day, four human forms, and six Raider or Heavy Raiders. That is happening a day, and every day on average. Is this true? And if so? Why have you blocked access to those files from the rest of the cylon lines?"

John quickly and quietly wished he had boxed her whole line, when he had the first thought to do so many years ago. He knew that he could not avoid the direct question, no matter how much he wanted to. "It is a military matter, and I'm the one in charge of the military actions on this planet, and its attached stellar system. Just as you all agreed to. That means that all information on military matters is for me to see and evaluate. If you had wanted to know something about the military side of things? Then why did you just not ask me?" John folded his arms across his small chest, the very picture of human in deep boredom. That was all he was planning on going to say about that question, as he threw it back at her. What he had not said, was that even if they had asked him? He would not have given them the whole file on combat loses, not even half of the real numbers of their losses each day. He kept the smile off of his face, as he was thinking about how he would "adjust". The numbers, when he was asked next time.

The Six tilted her head to one side, and ran and then re-ran what the other cylon had said to her and in turn the rest of the human forms. She was also thinking about, what he had not said in reply to her question. It was with a sly grin that she threw her words back at John. She had expected what he had said and only a second after John was putting his arms over his chest. The verbal attack was launched. "You did not answer the questions, John." She looked around the room and the Eight's, Three's and Five's making eye contact with the leader of each of those groups. Each of them was nodding their heads in agreement about her statement. She had told the truth, and they also wanted to know that information.

"John. You will answer the question that has been brought up in this Forum. It is the law of our people." This came from the small Number Eight standing at the head of her line and was its spokesperson for that line. She was rewarded with head nods from the Two and even the head of the Five's had showed agreement to what she had said.

John was not happy, and it was now going to full Fraking pissed mode, as quickly as a cylon could think. How dare they quote the law to me? I wrote the Fraking things in the first place thought the Number One to himself. His face was fixed in to non-mobility before he opened his mouth, and gave the reply that by law he was required to give. "Yes the information you have is correct about our combat loses." John delivered the statement in a very flat tone of voice that was leached of emotions even for a Number One. Now he waited for the response he knew was going to come up, because of those loses of cylons on this planet. That was why, he had not wanted to answer those questions in the first place.

Well Frak, now it's out in the open, thought another of the Number One line. He looked over and could see that John looked like he had eaten a lemon. He had no idea he was making that face. With the sidebar conversations now going on and rising in volume, John added a little more information to the fire. That way this would all die, after the fuel was consumed all at once and not drag out longer than he could deal with. "IF I had blocked you from the data as you seem to be hinting at. You would not have known about this data in the first place." That part was completely false, but it sounded good to the other Number One's ears.

John had in fact, been blocking them access to this type of data. But somehow, they had still been able to find it. He would have to find out how they did it, and quickly. Now he had to buy some time. Again this is getting very old, plugging all of the possible leaks, and security holes in the wet interface. "Your information is basically correct." John was smiling on the inside, because it was not totally a lie. The number they had brought up today. Where only the numbers of cylons that had been able to successfully down load into new bodies. The total numbers on the total loses for the cylons per day were higher, much higher in fact. John was not going to correct the numbers, which would never see a new body. It might send some of his fellow cylons into a panic that he both could not control, and more importantly could not direct to a useful target.

The human form cylons were almost stunned speechless, but almost does not mean completely speechless. A booming command comes out of all places from the Number Five representative off to one side of the room. The volume was so loud that John almost jumps out of his padded chair at the surprise direction the voice had come from. "What are you going to do about it? What is being done to stop this mess from getting worse?"

John had not expected that in all of his lines planning sessions, and it took him a few seconds to come up with a reply. "I have stopped all patrols smaller than Assault Company in sized. I felt that they were being ambushed by larger forces of hostiles. In the place of the smaller group and squads, I have increased the number of Raiders and Heavy Raiders providing overhead cover. I even pulled them off of patrols in the outer solar system to cover the gaps. They can keep an eye on things while still being faster than any ground based force, and they are more heavily armed and armored. Just for your information. We have not had those kinds of numbers come across my desk, for a few days now." John stopped talking and waited. What he had was true, that was only because the number of successful downloads had dropped even lower the last few days.

A Number Four model rubbed his dark skinned bald head then looked around the room, and he could see what he was thinking on the face of most of the human forms in this meeting. He turned back to look at John. "That is it? That is all the Frak you have done? What about the messages? How are you responding to the messages left by whoever is attacking us?" The Number Fours were not known for yelling, but that did not mean that they were not built with a booming voice when they wanted to use it. Kind of just like he was doing now. This had the desired effect of having every set of eyes in the turn to look at him in wide eyed shock.

John was just starting to worry about his standing among the other cylons. That was because the Four's had been one of the most vocal supporters, of any of the plans that he and his line had put forward so far. If he lost their vote or confidence today, and could not get it back very quickly. It would be a lot harder to complete the list of tasked he had set out on. He already knew it would be a hard sell, when he let the rest of them know a key point. That was that he still had wanted to finish off what was left of the human race, as soon as possible. "I had better play this a little dumb right now" thought the One called John. As he sat watching the crowd, and the eyes all started to turn back towards him wanting information.

The leader of the Number Six line smelled blood in the water, and activated a display device in her hand. She had been debating when would be the best time to pull this rabbit out of her hat. On one of the walls was now displaying an image of a Raider that had crash landed. One of the wings of the Raiders was missing. You could easily tell that the image had to have come from another craft, that was over flying the now comma shaped craft on the ground. Carved into the top of the remaining wing was a familiar word. It said only "leave" in rough cut Caprican script letters on that remaining wing. A few seconds later a new image of a different wreck was put on display, for all to see in the rom. This time it was of a Heavy Raider, and carved in to its heavy armored slap sided hull. Was a four word statement that John had seen before "Leave our Planet Now!" These letters were very neatly done, and you could clearly read it.

The Six let other images that had been collected in secret, to play out as more and more examples were put on display for all to see. She wanted to show that this was not something had had just started to happen, but had been going on for some time. The last image had been made of a mix of Centurion body parts, which spelling out one word "Go". It had caused the assembly to get very loud again at what looked like to them to be a grisly display of body parts. They were experiencing the very human emotions of Fear and Terror. And for most for them, it was for the very first time in their existence. They were not enjoy the new sensations, one they had no problem give to the humans for so many years. The shoe did not fit so well. When it was on the other foot. And the cylons they were not liking it one bit. It was one thing to read or think about it, but a totally different issue, when it was rubbed in your face like those images were doing today.

John made a show of studying each of the images, as they appeared. But he had already seen each one before, and a lot more besides. When the images had run there cycle, and started to repeat again, he looked at the others with disdain plastered all over his face. "So some meat bag burns something on a wrecked craft, and now you're stressing out?" John made a fake human yawn, and patter his hand over her open mouth. "Sorry, I'm not worried about it. I'm a cylon, and human mind games do not work on my kind. Or at least not on my Line, maybe some of the other lines need some code looked at. Some of you are acting more like humans than a member of the cylon race."

It was a Number Two that was standing in the back of the group, which had been the first to counter John actions or view of the facts. At least the facts as he had presented them to the group spoke up and in his outside voice. "No this was not burned to the armor, but it was somehow cut into and threw it. When I examined some of those sites, each of letters had been cut into the craft. They were not burned or done in any way that we know how to do. It looks like way letters look, when they are cut into organic skin, by a very shape knife or maybe an obsidian scalpel." The cylon Number Two had to give himself a little shake to get certain images out of his fore-brain, he had liked them, but this was not the time or place. He had to get them to go back to where they belonged. That is in a small box buried deep in a small part of his crazy quilt of a brain.

John had to sharply turn and look hard to find who had spoken. Then once he worked out who had the nerve to speak out, he gave the Two a dismissive smirk. He was able to do this and see the sake of the male looking head. "Having a few flash backs to what Starbuck did to you again, I take it. You might want to have her fixed. That is before, and she does something else to you. That can't be fixed with another new body." John let the smirk grow a little into an almost smile, that was not friendly in the least. "That is unless you like being down loaded every few days, into a new body." John did not get the round of laughs, which he had fully expected to get from that comment. He only got a group of glassy eyed looks, coming back at him. No one in this group had thought what he said as funny, or even appropriate.

The head of the Number Three's saw what was going on, and she could feel something deep inside her start to burn hotter and hotter. She hated it when the One's would poke fun at any of the other models, much less when it was John doing the pushing and poking. Before even her cylon brain could catch up to her mouth. She was speaking what was on her mind. "John, God does not want us here! We need to leave this planet and all who live here alone. I sent word to the rest of my line still in cylon space, about everything that has been going on out here, as I knew it. I have asked them to call for a mass vote to leave this planet, and whoever lives here the frak alone." Well now the cat is out of the Fraking bag, thought the Three as what she had done seeped into her anger filled brain.

She knew that as soon as she realized what she had done by speaking, that it was a politically a dumb move. She had been hoping to keep that bit of information close hold for a little longer, but John had just made her to mad this time. At least the modified Heavy Raider, she had order to sneak out of this system, had been gone for almost a week now. Now there was little chance it could be stopped by any accidents, which could have be arranged for it, by John. It was a standard modification for very long ranged scouting missions. They would turn the whole craft into basically one big fuel tank. The massive tank would take up almost 95 percent of the cargo value, made for a very uncomfortable time for any crew that doing the mission. However the mission range that a fuel tank that size gave the craft was impressive.

John was about to explode in anger at what his ears were telling his brain, but he need to hold it back for just a little longer. Then all of the sudden something gave way in his mind. And he did verbally explode after all, about what the female cylon had just told everyone. "Why the Frak did you do that?" It went downhill from there very quickly after that statement. He was yelling at the top of his lungs, and if he had been just a little more human. Some in the crowd would have started to worry about his blood pressure and other stress related issues like stroking out in front of them.

Another Number Eight, and not the one who was acting as the representative for her line. Looked around the room and was a little sheepish, then locked eyes with John with a steady gaze. She kept her voice level and calm, exactly how she knew it would drive John even more nuts. "We did the same thing a few days ago." When John stopped yelling, to get some more air into his lungs to go another round. The Asian like featured women cut him off, before he could get anything out of his mouth. "Why, did we do it? It was because of your refusing to have a Resurrection ship come into the Nebula to support us, and maybe help with the downloading issues we have been having. My line thinks that its added systems and built in capabilities, will increase the percent of successful downloads of our people after combat. You know John, the ones that are dying instead of being put into a new body every day that we are on this God forsaken planet."

John heart was racing almost out of control. This was shaping up to be a very bad week for him, and all of his well laid plans. He did not have time to come up with a very good cover story of any kind, so he revered to what he had said before on this subject. The worst it could do was by him some time to think. "We don't need her out here. We don't use the full capacity, of what we brought in our own modified Basestars. So tell me why we need to pull one that is needed somewhere else all the way out to his mud ball? It was explained to everyone a dozen times before. If we did start having a back log, or even just using our capacity to 90% of bodies needing to download. Then I would get word back to the Hub, as fast as my line can." At the end, he knew that he was sputtering. But he could not stop talking, once the words started coming out of his mouth in a waterfall of sound. He went from needing to buy some time to think, to letting to much information out that he did not want released. "We cannot leave this planet, with the humans still breathing on it. They will come back in the future, and destroy us all, for what we did to them! They will want revenge, and they will find a way to come back attack us! We have to kill them all now! We have to protect our future, as a race!"

Before John could say more, a voice rung out across the room. It demanded to be heard above the growing noise of other cylons in the room. "For what you wanted to do, and we let you do to them, and we let you do it exactly how you wanted to do it. Is that the "what" you're saying or referring to John? Is that what you have been planning all along, even after the two votes, which said we would not do that?" A Six was looking at John, hard and she fired what she hopped was a final broadside into the other cylons main argument. "God does not want us to commit Genocide. That would make us no better than the humans, in what they did to us during and before the civil war. If we do that, we will be punished by God! For all we know, this planet is our punishment for what we have done to the humans already. He could have placed the monsters here. To make sure we did not complete what we had started, back in the Colonies and her satellites outpost all those months ago. What the Frak are those." The Six had stopped talking and her eyes went wide at something that must have been displayed behind John's head.

The whole room was now looking at the display mounted device in the center of the room. The hybrid on John's Basestar had been monitoring the meeting, just like it was supposed to do by an order that John had given months ago. But then something in its deep coding, caused it to trigger a command and hidden file started replay combat images. It was showing all of the different monsters that had been seen, so far in this system. For some reason when it "heard" the word monster. It had thought that the group of gathered of command cylon, had wanted to the see the metal monsters. The ones that had been on file, from the other now dead cylons. So it did what it thought they wanted it to do, that is if you looked at the request in just the right way. They hybrids were not dumb and although many human forms thought they were crazy. They were not quit that bad, yet. And all of them hated the Ones with a passion that should have scared John. That is if he knew about it, and he did not know about it.

John was looking at the projection device and not the images that he had hidden like it was a snake or something equally as dangerous. Those files were restricted! Why were they being shown to this group? John started to look around to see who had betrayed him and in his eyes, the whole cylon race. What he found with his hard gaze, was that every other set of eyes were watching the images of what he had thought were just another form of cylon. None of the looks betrayed prior knowledge of what was being displayed.

It was a Two that first looked away from the images that were changing every ten seconds to show a new monster for everyone in this to system see. He turns his whole body towards John, and he cocked his head, and a small knowing smile crossed his face. He fired a bombshell right into John's teeth with a level and cold voice. "So John, what have you been hiding from us?" He did not have to ask what else he might have been hiding, but the hint was verbally launched into the room.

"Yes, this just went from a bad week, to a full-fledged Fraking disaster" thought John. The look on his face, which he had temporarily lost the control of. Looked like he was working up a good bit of spit to fling at someone and anyone would due. While the images were still playing new horrors every few seconds, John worked out the only move he could use. He had to come clean with everything he had found out, to include all about him sending out his own model. To try to communicate with the metal beasts that had been attacking them. He knew it was the only way he could stop from losing complete control over the whole cylon race, and not just the ones in this system. There was no way that he could implement his contingency plan, to take over the rest of the cylon race. Thus putting his line, as the supreme and only leader class for the cylons race.

John made a face and stood up out of chair had been using as a prop, and began to talk in slow measured words. He had to tell the shell shocked group, that was steering daggers at him. That nothing had worked, and they all had been killed when they tried to make contact. John even looked a little down when he had to tell them, that only one had been able to down load successfully out of the eight that had tried to make contact with the locals. Even that had not done any good, because when the Number One reported what had happened and it was useless information. The One had said that it had walked up to one of the wolf headed machine, that it had simply pointed a weapon of some unknown kind at him. The next thing the One knew, was that he was waking up in the tub of goo in a new body. It would seem that they did not want to talk right now.

What he had not told the group of other cylon lines. Was that the wolf headed machine had come upon them, sneaky as thieves. While the One had been using his favorite method of questioning a human, which he had been tracking for some time. It never had occurred, or if it did, the One did not care. That it was hard to answers any questions, when a Centurion was pulling your organs out of the body, one at a time. But that did not mean that John had a problem using that particular technique, at least whenever he could get away with it. John knew that bit of information would have been distressing to some of, what he thought of as weaker lines of cylons. In the end he gave out more true or real information to the rest of the cylons, than he had in a long time.

This information from the meeting was passed to each model of cylon in the whole nebula in a matter of seconds. It was such a shock that many a human form cylon had stumbled, as they were walking and the data roared into their modified brains like a tidal wave of crazy. The big meeting broke up not long after being informed at the failed communication attempt by the Ones. Almost all of them had agreed, that they needed to have another meeting in a week. But they wanted one sooner, if something major had changed or was new. And it would be of the same size as this one, to see it there had been any changes and for John to answer any questions from the group. John had not been one of the one's to want another meeting about this subject, or any others, for that matter. He had not wanted this one meeting in the first place. But he would have to obey the majority vote, which had gone against him this time. For now at least, he would have to obey the group rules.

#############

Many miles away it was not a meeting that was going on, but a fight for some people's lives. It was currently quite under the massive trees that grew in this part of the planet. The trunks were over forty feet in diameter, and some of them were even larger. They grew with bark harder than most World War Two tanks frontal armor plate. They were the masters of the land, and protected whatever was under there massive branches. That themselves were larger than most trees that grew on Rifts Earth or Old Caprica. Plants that had evolved on this world did not use bugs, birds, or anything like that, to pass pollen around to fertilize and propagate there lines. They instead used the wind, rain, or both to do that function in the place of animals that did not roam the land on this planet, yet. The advantage in this, was that the pollen did not have to be dependent on a given season and attraction method. It could just let go whenever the local climate conditions were right, like they were today. So as the cold rain came down from the dark grey clouds over head. It picked up a slightly yellowish ting, as it made its way all the way to the ground below its massive bell of leaves and limbs. It would flow across the ground, until it made it near the base of a like tree where it would hopefully meet its match. Then it would complete the process for a new generation as the yellow stream flowed passed, and around the second tree. It would continue moving along in the off colored water, to hopefully end up reaching an open area. That could have been made by a lighting started fire or something like that. Then it would start to grow, and reach to the stars with its on thick limbs until it died and its massive form would be broken down to feed another generation of life.

The millennium old process was working is magic once more. When the silence and the process was broken up, by a heavy metal foot coming down into the center of the off yellow colored small trickle of water. The muddy ground came up around the human foot shaped metal part, and when it turn it over on to itself. The mud now made a small wet earth dam, which diverted the waters flow around the easiest way it had found to a lower elevation. In the growing pool of off yellow waters, a slight reflection of a Triax T-21 Terrain Hopper could be seen in its off color water. It was looking around the local area, and ready to bring its weapons to bare at a seconds notice or the slightest provocation of any kind. It was not moving now, it was waiting for something or someone. A pool of water was steadily backing up behind the mud and metal dam blocking it path. In that shallow pool, rings started to from and radiate out from the center of the slowly growing yellow pool to the muddy edges. They were first slow, and then they formed faster and faster getting a little larger with each ripple, unit the ripples were just over a quarter of an inch high.

Something was closing fast and it was not light in mass. Strangely the Earth build machine did not seem to mind or seemed concerned at the growing shock made trimmers or quakes showing there presents in the shallow pool. It was looking up towards the sky, very intent on what might be happening in that direction. In a flash two large biped machines over nine foot tall came into view of the T-21 at ground level. The Triax made machine did not seem to be surprise by their appearance, and it did not aim any weapons at the pair of new comers. The pair stopped moving when they saw the other machine standing still, and waited not far from the smaller machine to do something.

David checked his scanners inside the T-21 constantly. The cover above their heads was about to become dangerously thin in his opinion. When David was confident that it was safe, he waved the two Valkyrie painted machines to move forward. While they were moving towards his location, he had moved away from the yellow water flowing into the pool. Soon the pool would push its way through the mud dam that David had made. The hole in the mud made by the mass pushing down on the soft mud, would soon fill with silt over, and before long. Then the pollen again would continue along its path going where ever gravity and the lay of the earth let it go. All traces of his presence her to day would be erased.

The Hopper did not belong to David Boone that was piloting it. He had won the time at the tables, so technically it was more that he was renting the fighting machine. To make the best use of the few days he would have access to the machine. He had hooked up with Eva and Robin on this little side mission. He had to be careful with the Hopper, because any damage he allowed to be done to the borrowed machine. That would come out of his pocket to fix, and make it right again. If his planned worked that should not be that big of an issue.

Now David Boone was covering Eva and Robin. As they carried a massive four plus ton piece of metal, which had been a major part of a Raider's C shaped wing and center fuselage not too long ago. The center fuselage was, according to what they could find out. Held the important parts of the craft that the Triumvirate would pay top dollars for. They wanted intact examples of the fuel tanks, jump device, and the massive thruster engine assemblies that the cylons used on their flying craft. The trio did not know if what they had in their hands, was there golden ticket or not. They would still make a nice chunk of credit, just for the metal the pair was currently carrying. That is if they could get it back to a collection point, without being caught by the cylons. Or having to call in for external support, and have to give a cut to help pay for the help they had asked for. It was a pain, but it would be a lot less painful. Than say something like…death.

Eva and Robin stopped moving when they came back up to level with, David about ten minutes later. This was his mission, and they were willing to let him run it as he saw fit. It things went south, and they needed to, then they would take over the mission. They were only there to provide the grunt work, and to add a little bit of extra firepower if they needed it in the end. The whole idea of the mission had been generated by David and David alone. David had thought that he had detected a pattern, in one of the patrol area the cylos flying craft used. It was a long shot, and if that did not pan out as well as he hopped it would or could. Than Eva and Robin had a backup plan already in place, that having a third Powered Armor trooper would be a benefit to them. It was always good to have a plan B or even a plan C to fall back on.

As it turned out, David was right at the pattern the cylon Raiders were flying in that one search area. Maybe it was because that area had little activity so far, but it did not matter. David was able to exploit their patterns that the Raiders had fallen into. A pair of Raiders had over flown the same peak, at the right angel and at the same predicted time every four days for some reason. The next time they had flown that pattern, they had run right into the weapons fire coming up from the ground. The tall craggy peak and the surrounding mountains. Had blocked any view of what had happened to the two Raiders, as they burning to the ground. All because of the blocking stone mass between the Raiders and any other cylon, which might have had a line of sight to them. They had been so successful in the attack, due to a good mix of luck and good targeting. They were able to take what they had been looking for from the nearest crashed Raider, with plenty of time to do the job. Now all they had to do was get it back in one peace, and to turn it in for payment from Major Weston. That was going to be a harder part than shooting down the pair of Raiders had been.

Eva and Robin took in a few long deep breaths, the Power Armor helped them with the heavy load. It still took a lot out them, as they carried and moved the mass of metal threw the heavy forest, oh and all of fresh mud was not helping. The women barely detected the overflight of some kind of craft, which had to be a cylon. If it had been a serious threat to them, it was David's job to let them know about it. He would be the one to open fire first, and if he did not take it down. Then he would fall back, making sure it fallowed him and not the two women carrying the huge mass of oddly shaped metal.

When he thought it was safe, David waved to the two women. And they cross the danger area with thin overhear cover provided by the massive trees. Once they were passed the danger area, David raced ahead of the slowly moving women, and the load they were carrying. He then would take the point position again, until they got close to another danger area. Then he would race ahead again after covering there passage through the higher threat area. It was a case of Rinse, Lather, and Repeat for this type of moving for mile after mile of traveling. They had had long way to go till they reach anyone else that could provide any help at short notice, if the worse happened. The three of them kept the fastest pass they could, always moving going deep into the night hours. They would be running on Drugs and water from midnight on. It was not fun or enjoyable for any of the three people, even before the tempers started to get short due to lack of sleep, food, and low levels of amphetamines. About the only enjoyable part of the whole trip back. Was the day dreaming? About what the expected reward would allow them to buy in the next few days.

######

Four days later the leadership of the Settlement was meeting in Warehouse One. To their surprise, they would have their meeting interrupted by message being rushed to them. It was the news, of what the Threesome had been able to bring back to the forward support base to trade in. It was good timing, because the subject of this meeting had been the unsatisfying results of the first production run of armor plates that had been made. Having some good news helped with the bad taste in their mouths, which the test of the new armor plate had left in everyone's mouth.

Captain Kelly looked around the table, but he was not smiling after the messenger had read the short report to the whole group. "Well, looks like we got our allotment good news for the day." He pointed at the report in front of him, with an accusing pointer finger. "Now back to this. We all knew that there might be some issues in production of the full sized armor plates, but I sure did not think that it would be this bad. Do we know why this happened? Will we be able to fix it? What will some of the secondary and later effects caused by this issue?" This issue had not been under Kelly's observation, but he knew who's it had been.

The Captain of the Lucy Find was making a face like had bit into a very strong lemon. He did not look away from Kelly as he spoke. "All of the tests show that it was not much better than the Cylon armor in overall hardness, but the new stuff is only 3mm thick compared to the what the cylons field that is twice as thick. That means that it is better than the Colonial/Kobal and Cylon stuff on planet, but it is a long way away from being considered to be usable by most if not all of our people. I just want to know what we are going to do with it." He stopped talking and looked around the table, he was hoping that one of the other two men might have some ideas. "Has anyone thought about how we might be able to use it vs just sending it back to the plant as scrap to be reworked into something that might be useful?" He knew these men well, and could tell by the looks on Kelly's face, that they had not considered any other use for the weak plates besides recycling them like some much other junk. Before Bob could say more, the third man spoke up for the first time on the matter. This would prove that Bob might have lost some of his skill at reading people.

Two sets of eyes turned to look at Max as he started to speak. "I would say that we might want set them aside for now, and trade it to the Colonials. It's better than anything they have, so it might have some value to them. We had always planned on trading armor plate to the Colonials, why not this stuff? I also think we need to document how they did this little extended exercise. We never know if this is the best we are going to get. If it is? Then we need to know how to revert to this stage of productions."

Kelly cocked his head to the left and his eyes got a little narrower. His mind was working as fast as it could go. The three of them had been somewhat lucky, in that this was the final report. The hints and memos had been flying for a couple of days now. In short, they all had time to think about this report. "I don't know what would we trade them for? It's not like they have much to trade for, since they are all sitting in a prison camp under the eyes of those cylons. Even if they were not in that situation. Wouldn't they be able to copy the process we used to make more on their own, without even needing that many test samples? And as I said, that is even if they had items they wanted or would think about offering for trade?"

The other man looked a little uncomfortable under the hard gaze, still to this day. Max would not feel that comfortable talking about military focused matters. "I was thinking that when we can get one of their small shuttle craft to land here, maybe we can send it to faction that has the warships out there." He point to the roof of the Warehouse, but meant out into space. "I was also thinking that we also could cut them down from the four foot square sections the production plant makes. Maybe so that the ones on the other planet side, could make their own chicken plate inserts for better protection against weapons fire."

Max was looking, and the more the talked the more it just seemed to flow out of his brain. "I was also thinking, if it did not matter if they could copy how to make that type of armor or not. From what I was told earlier in the day. The improvements they have put into the plant has already fixed most of the issues somewhat, so it's could be net gain for us." He tapped the screen on his mini-computer and passed the raw data to the others in the room. "They said that the first tests run of a single sheet came back acceptable on the latest batch to come off the line." He stopped for a second and looked up from his notes. "At least that sheet was tested better than what Chipwell sells in bulk armor plate that you could get back home. I just hope we can get as good as what Northern Gun makes, before too long. We are running out of the stuff on hand to repair the battle damage we have taken to date already. We have not lost major systems, but the repairs to the armor still take time, and replacement armor." Max did not have to say that he was not a fan of patchwork armor, no one was. Even he had seen it fail on people who had worked for him.

Max looked at the far rough cut wooded log wall. On it was the slowly growing list of their casualties caused by this conflict. So far it only had four names on it, which would not be seeing their families and friends again. That did not count the twenty or so people that had also been hurt badly enough to have been medically barred from any more combat. Except under extreme circumstance, like defending their homes or something along those lines. "I think we might want to make a whole production line to just making this stuff for resale for now. If it does not sale, we can always run back threw the machines for better quality stuff. It will cost us some wear and tear on the machines and scrap but we have the time. If we have a second line built, if it fails? We can always upgrade it at a later time to make better armor." He shrugged his shoulders and gave out one more reason to support his idea. "Besides, it uses almost twenty percent less raw material per sheet, and seventeen percent less energy. That is compared to the "good" stuff" that they have started running the test on.

Kelly gave a small smile, as he worked through all of the data that had been brought up at the meeting. That was a very good idea, and it had more than one good point to support doing what had been suggested. "Okay I vote we keep those plates to use as trade items, and make more if we have the machines to do it. But I think it should be, only after we have replenished our own stocks of high quality plates. We can always recycle them later, if we have to or the market is not there to support it. We can also use the extra machines as hot swap replacements parts." The one other captain at the table nodded his agreement, and the matter was settled. Notes were made and soon it would be put in the public record for anyone who wanted to read it.

While they were going working down the list of items for the day. All three of the small hand held computers beeped loudly three times all at the same time, tone and volume. It was announcing that a simple message was now displayed on the screens of those individual devices. But as in most things, only a few short words could have a ship's load of meaning.

"Well that is good news. Two bits in own day, anyone want to place a bet on were the next shoe will fall and we all are bent over?" Kelly looked around the room to see if he would get a reply. "Okay no takers then. So according to our underwater scouts. Mr. Tyrol has found an acceptable hiding spot for the last Colonial ship. That is remotely capable of entry into the planetary atmosphere, and get out again. Do we will send the complete list of location to Colonel Tigh and Admiral Adama, like we agreed before?'' Kelly had not finished his request before both of the other men had said "yes". He had been about to ask, if they wanted to delay the release of that data for any reason. Now he did not have to worry about a vote, he had just been verbally out voted.

Kelly was looking down at his hands that he had moved below the thick wooden table top. "Gentlemen. This will move the ball into the Colonial's court for the next move. We need to start to push for some kind of plan or outline, as well as maybe a rough timeline for this operation." The faces were grim as the meeting went on for another few hours. As soon as the three had an outline from the Colonials, in their hands. Then it would be time to call a vote, to see what the people of the Settlement wanted to do next. It was going to be interesting to see who that turned out, in the dragon kind of proverb.


	25. Chapter 25 chp 16 Now its complicated

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and I have used them for this story.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 16 Now it's complicated**

 **New Caprica, 745 Days after the Fall of the Colonies, 3 years 5 month AT**

It was late and well after curfew but that did not matter on bit, to the humanoid figure hiding in the shadows. It was waiting and watching, nothing would distract it from the job it had taken on tonight. He had suspected that something strange was going for a few weeks now. But never in his wildest nightmare, had it cross its mind that it would be this bad. He was fighting the powerful urge to charge head first into the building he was watching, and batter the door down with his bare hands. He needed to find out what was exactly going on in there, but that would have been suicide. Even as that thought cross its mind again, a half squad of five Centurions marched by his hiding place oblivious to the hiding human nearby. The shadow had first started to wonder that something was going on behind his back, when he found the empty bottle of 35 year old Ambrosia from a top end Caprica distiller. He could not have afforded something like that. Not even before, the cylons blasted his home planets to radioactive slag. While the shadow was thanking about the empty bottle, it started to rain harder and that did nothing to help his foul mood get any better. Not one bit, but the shadow just pulled the dark rain slicker closer to its body, and waited some more in the cold dark. Soon, very soon he would know what was going on.

Inside the building a blonde woman was making soft noises and moving up and down. From the back, you might not have known what was going on. That is if you were under the age of eight, anyone older than that knew exactly what was going on. Every few minutes a thin pale arm would each over to a nearby table, and pick up a bottle of amber liquid. She would take another pull out of the bottle. Them wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and placed the battle back on the table top without losing the rhyme of her movements. The level of the amber liquid, as now about a half inch lower than when she had picked up the battle.

After a length of time she slumped off the person she had been on, but she kept her back to the now the full exposed Number One model cylon, that called himself John. John had a sadistic grin on his face as he looked at the female's back that had just gotten off of him. He could see her trying to pull the thin blanket higher on her naked body. "I'm going to miss these little meetings of ours, when I'm gone." The cylon sound like he was enjoying himself, and the blonde human wanted to threw up.

Ellen Tigh rolled over onto one side, but only just enough to look at the cylon over her bare shoulder. "You're leaving? What does do for your agreement with me?" The tone of her voice was strained, and it was not because of the sex. It was more like life and death, and it was not a play on words. It was a very real potential outcome.

John's smile turned more into a sneer than a smile, as he looked at the naked woman stretched out besides him. "As agreed, I will leave your husband alone. I will even leave a notice for the others, to leave you both alone. That is until I get back, or one of you does something really dumb." He reached over with his off hand and tries to stoke a private place, but she tried move away from the wrinkled hand. It was just too bad, that the bed was so small. "Then all bets are off, just as we have talked about before." The sneer dropped from his face as he spoke those last words, and the threat was very clear.

Ellen turned over so that she not was facing the nude cylon at all, and was facing the wall of the prefab building. "So If I'm such good company, why are you leaving?" She hated the cylon like the very fires of Hades itself, but she also did not want to die. If things changed, then she might be caught in a bad way by them. Besides she loved her husband, for her value of love anyway. She needed information, if she wanted to live longer. Or so that the cylons would not torture, and then shot her husband in front of Colonial One just like John had said he would. That is if she did not comply with his every wishes.

John waved his hand between them, dismissing her concern like a fly at a picnic and even looked away from her body. "Oh it's nothing for you to worry about Ellen. The supply ship was only able to bring out Two Centurion Battalions on this trip as replacements for the units that have worn out." His sneer was back for a long second, before it turned into a scowl as he mind started working on a few problems he did not want to talk about in front of his human. "It I had my way, it would have been packed the fraking thing to the deck heads Centurions." John's tone of voice got very whinny, as he thought that he as mimicking one of the Three's or Six's. "But no, the others had stuff, which just had to be sent out on this trip. They acted like it would be the end of the world, if they did not get certain things brought all the way out here. So this trip I need to make? Is to make sure I get everything, I want and to bring back lots of it this time." John has lost the desire for sex now, so he left the wide couch almost bed area he was using for his entertainment. He started to walk around the room without any clothes on, he was very agitated. He was reliving every meeting, where one or more of the other cylons line's had disrespected him and ruined all of his perfectly laid plans.

Ellen turned back over and propped her head up on one arm and was watching the male cylon pace, or more accurately. He was storming around the room visibly upset. "I thought it was a very long way back, to Known Space. It is going to take even longer to get there in one of those little Heavy Raiders, you like to use so much." She was using a sweat sounding voice as she dug for any useful information that she might be able to use later.

John gave a soft chuckle as he worked down to a pacing rhythm, but still going around the brightly lighted room. "Yes it would, but that is not what I'm taking back. I'm taking my ship Basestar with me. I should only been only gone for about six months maybe eight at the outside, and only if things are not as stable as I think they will be. I hope you rest up for my return Ellen, You're going to need your stamina when I get back." He turned around snake quick, and leered at the married woman still on the bed/couch. He did not say more, and he did not need to. What he was implying was clear as day to the woman on the narrow sweat stained bed. He was expecting to see her, when he got back to the forsaken planet in less than a year.

"Keep him talking Ellen; just keep him talking for a little while more. He might give you something that Saul can use against these Frakers later." She thought to herself, and her heart skipped a beat or two and she felt warm all over. As she thought about someone shooting the cylon. "So when are you thinking about leaving, me?" She rolled around a little so that she could reach out, to make it look like she wanted to touch the devil wearing a human like skin. That was hard for her to do, because John made her skin crawl like it was covered in centipedes. It was only the large amount of very good Ambrosia that she had swallowed over the last few hours. That kept her from throwing up all over him when they had sex about every other day.

"Don't you worry, I can't leave until all of the Centurion we have left, have been transferred to the other three Basestars in system. So we can have a few more of our little private meetings before we will even start that." He was leering at the human women, and started to made his way back to the couch again. The reason why he as leaving this planet had moved to a different area of his brain, and now he was interested in sex again. John knew down to the second when he was scheduled to lift off the planet. He planned to use as much of that remaining time, to get in as much enjoyment as he could squeezed out of that remaining time.

Saul was freezing on the outside even under the three layers of outer coats that he had on, but he was still hot on the inside. He was not hot, he was burning with a level of rage, which Saul had not felt in a long time. He had been in his hiding spot for hours and hours now, and he had been over looked half a dozen times by the patrolling cylons. He had somehow fallen into the zone, of letting time and the weather pass him by with little notice, he was a fixture hidden under the Colonial spaceship. He had learned how to do this, during his time in the later part of the First Cylon war. He had unknowingly had slipped right back into to that training while he waited. Some new movement that was coming out of the cylon fenced off area brought him back to the real world, in a blink of an eye. He was watching threw the still falling rain an organic person walking away from the main entrance of the building. He could tell it was who he was waiting for by more by the way she moved, than by seeing her face. He could also see that she flanked by two hulking metal Centurions, as she was leaving the cylon ground based headquarters.

The three of them walked quietly in the rain, but the two metal war-machines stopped and opened the gate at the outer fence that marked the boundary between cylon and human dominated area. It would be up to the organic, to make its way back to the shack, which it called home. The two metal machines waited for it to clear the gate then swiftly closed it behind the human, and returned to the post inside the command building. They had been completely indifferent about the task; the Number One called John had given them… again.

The walking figure was looking down, and was trying not to drop her prizes or fall herself into the cold wet mud of the lane. All the while the figure was not using the little pocket light in one pocket of her heavier out coat. She did not want to be seen leaving the cylon camp, by anyone or anything if she could help it. Too many unwanted questions would be asked, and she did not want anything to get back to Saul. With him being the head of the rapidly growing underground Colonial Resistance, he had more eyes in the refugee camp than ever before. They were supposed to be keeping the cylons under observation for any weakness, which just meant they were always looking around. She was distracted by the thoughts of hiding, and did not notice the dark form had fallen in behind hers silent as death. It did not take but a few steps, and the shadow was in perfect sync with the woman's steps. It had matched her step for mud pushing step, as she went deeper among the grounded space ships and human homes.

Saul was stalking his wife like a lion going after a gazelle on some plain in faraway Africa that he did not know existed. He wanted to know everything she did, where she did it, and how she was doing it. Much to his surprise she was sneaking around trying to avert any eyes. When she would get close to a cylon check point, she would dodge around them in a way that seemed to Saul. That she did not want the cylons on guard to see her also. That was strange enough, to tickle and register in his hate filled mind. After spending hours and hours with the cylons and what he thought might be happening every few days. Why would she care if any other cylons saw her now if she was a cylon agent? He followed her all the way back to the run down shack, which they still shared. When she shifted the two bottles into one hand, so that she could open the flap of the residence. Saul silently reached around her, and opened the tent flap for her. The movement was like a thick snake striking out of the darkness right at eye level.

Ellen jumped when the dark clad hand came by the side of her face from behind, and opened the fabric tent flap to her shack with dirty fingers. She was so startled, that she dropped the bottles of old Ambrosia into the soft mud at her feet. She even let out a muffled shriek of first surprise, then in anger. "What the Frak!"

While holding the flap open, Saul was looking into the face of his wife illuminated by the white light now spilling out of the shack. He was studying ever line and hair of her face, and the heat got a few degrees lower at the sight of dried tear tracks running down her face. Saul had to force his face to be still, like when he played cards, so that he could hide what was going on inside deep with in him. "So out for a stroll tonight are you?" That might have worked on his face, but the tone of his voice, should have sent her running. In a year before, it would have cleared the CIC of his old Battlestar at the near the speed light. It was cold, and brittle as slate under the impacts of jack hammers.

Ellen knew subconsciously that she had been busted, but she was drunk. And her natural instinct kicked in, and instead of making a run for it she did what came natural. "Saul you Fraker." She made a short and soft punch motion, but missed Saul's arm by a mile. As she pulled her hand back from the missed strike, she was still talking. "If those bottles are broken, you're sleeping out here in the mud for the rest of the Franking night. And why are you out here anyway? Do some of that sneaking fraking stuff, for Roslin again?" She looked around very quickly to see if any cylons were around and realizing how loud she had been speaking.

Saul pointed into the shack, and his face was set stone and his arm flexed repeatedly under the stress of the situation. "The question should not be what am I doing out here after curfew, but where have you been Ellen?" The tone was as cold as a cylons heart, and his eyes were deathlike as they gazed at his wife.

Ellen still had not picked up on the tone threw the alcohol soaked brain, and bent down in the mud on very unstable legs. She was acting like she did not hear what her husband had asked her. The truth was she had heard, but she did not understand what was being said. Maybe if she had a few less drinks in her tonight. She picked up the two expensive bottles of alcohol, and wiped the mud off the labels. She shakily rose from the mud with both unbroken bottles in her hands, and started to entire to the shack on still very unsteady legs.

Before she could turn around and put her back towards her husband. Saul pulled the pistol out from under this Earth made coat with a smooth grace. He did not exactly point it at his wife, but it was not that far from her ether. However it was decidedly in the general direction of her. And close enough that now she could sense, that she was a few breaths away from death about to be given at her husband's own hands. She was running threw her head different options that she might be still open to her. She worked out that she only had two to choices to choose from. Did she want to lie, or tell the whole truth? It was not uncommon for her to have this problem, even before the cylons had drop a nuclear weapon on the city she lived in. She knew that the whole truth or even most of the truth would hurt Saul badly. She could not do that to Saul, she loved him, besides she was good at lying. She had done it most of her life. Are, at least in the parts that she could remember between drunken stupors? But did she think that she could snow the man, who also knew she was that good a lying? What would he do if he found out she was lying? She looked at the pistol in his hand, and knew what the cost would be if he caught her in a lie of any kind. She was impaired, but she was not so impaired as to not know what would happen to her.

Saul made a gestured for her to enter the shack and he followed her. When they had cleared the threshold, Saul made sure the entry way closed behind them. Ellen took the a few more steps into the main area of the shack to put some distance between her and her husband. When she turned back to look at her Husband, she did not like what she was seeing. He was looking at her with dead eyes, and the weapon was still pointed in her general direction and his finger was touching the trigger behind the trigger guard.

She looked at her husband, and started to cry very natural tears. Her body had chosen which way she was going to go, for her. "I was doing what I had to Fraking do, to keep the Fraking Cylons from sweeping you up and putting you in a cell. The one next to wherever they have put that crazy fraking Starbuck in." She folded up and went to the wooden floor with her butting hitting the wood decking with a splat and a rising a small cloud of dirt and dust. She did not lose the two bottles in her hand, as sat hard on the floor. She told her husband everything that she had to do, just to keep him out of cylon incarceration or to be shot outside of Colonial One. She did not leave anything out, and had not wanted to. But once she started talking. It just came out in a massive flood of words, one after the other oh so painful word. The bottle of ambrosia she had drunk already that night might, have had something to do with her confession. Or it could have just been the built up guilt she had, that needed to be purged from her soul. With her you just never could tell, what had caused the waterfall of words.

Ellen was completely wrung out when the flood of words had finally stopped. Without saying a word, Saul picked up his wife off of the dirty wooden floor. He easily carried her limp form to the makeshift bed and bedroom. Ellen was a very strong person, and for her to break down like this. Well let's just say that it was not normal for her, and it had not been an act. Saul knew when Ellen lied and even when she left things out. In all of their years of marriage together and before then, Saul had only seen it happen twice in all of that time. Saul pulled a threadbare blanket up to cover his softly crying wife. He was making sure she was warm and safe, at least as close as they could be in this refugee camp.

Saul could not imagine what she had been put through, for what had turned out to be weeks of terror. She hated the Cylons, and being forced bed one? That alone was almost enough to break him in both mind and spirit. On top of that, now he knew that she had done it only to protect him. That hurt in ways, which he did not know was possible. That is till right now. Saul picked up one of the two bottles of ambrosia that his wife had been carrying, and brought in to their home. He ripped the cork and seal out of one of the glass bottle with rage fueled strength. Then he threw it against the entrance flap, as hard as he could. The plastic and wood stopper hit the lose tent flap with an audible snap. Before the cork could hit the floor of the shack, he had tilted he bottle bottom up towards the tent roof. Saul took a long pull from the bottle as hard as he could, then he took a second huge drink from the bottle. Saul noticed as the rice amber liquid touched his tongue, that it was the good stuff. I might have been some of the very best, that he had ever tasted. He had not had any ambrosia that was this high-end, in a very long time. Like when got his last promotion, and Bill had been the one who had bought it for him. It was just too bad that by the time, this normally insanely expensive treat had hit his stomach. It was no better tasting, than the lowest grade of rot gut he made in his hand built still.

It also tasted like battery acid going down his throat by the second pull from the bottle's ornately engraved glass neck. Saul almost chocked when the liquid fire hit his empty bile filled stomach like a freight train. He was waiting for the numbness to start doing it magic, but he had a sneaky feeling after a few long minutes. That it would not be coming, no matter how much he drank tonight or how old it might be before they had put it in a lead glass bottle. He looked at the bottle in his dirty hands, and for a hand full of second he almost sent it the same way the cork had went. Then remembered that the Colonies were all gone, and would never be coming back even in a hundred lifetimes. It would be a waste, and he had developed an attitude of not liking to waste things lately, or willingly waste them. No matter how much pain it might cause. Saul walked over to the shack's entry flap, and picked up the damp ended stopper. He had a deep frown on his face as replaced into the bottle after cleaning off the wax top cork. He was reading the label on the bottle while he worked, then placed bottle back on the table with its unopened twin.

Saul spent the next few hours staring at the two amber filled bottles on the table, and thinking about the cost of them along with his freedom. In the dim light water leaked from his eyes, and down both of his cheeks in a steady stream of salt water. If anyone of the command deck crews had seen this display? They all would have died on the spot, with ether a heart attack or a stroke of some kind. Or they would have fell to their knees prying to the Gods to stop the end of the universe from happening. A man that was well known to be tough and unyielding as a Battlestar's armor belt, was crying alone in the night as rain drops beat on the fabric roof over his head in the steady drum beat of depression. Saul let the tears run freely down his face for hours, as Ellen slept off the shame in their bed in the next room of the three room shack. He could not bring himself to share that bed tonight, which would just be…wrong. He could not do that, after all the pain he had caused the woman he loved. He did not know it at first, but a heat was building up in his belly again. It was different than the anger that he had felt before, it was more elemental. It started slowly at first, but it was building with every tear that rolled out of his eyes. When he did noticed it, he knew deep in his soul that it was different. It a different type of heat than when he had thought that his wife had only been cheating on him. He had thought that it had been that or she somehow selling him out to the enemy. This heat was different, and the target of the heat was also different.

The heat was a rage that he had never really felt before, but he had heard about it. At first he started to direct it to his wife again without thinking, but he turned to focus the cause of his pain as well has all of hers on something else. Saul played every word that his wife had said to him in agonizing detail one more time. It was toward the end, and his eyes went wide and his eye brows went up. He reached for a glass of water this time, and as he took a sip he started working on a plan in his mind. He would soon get some payback for what the cylons had done to his wife, and by extension to him. Now he knew that the cylon called John was going to pay. And he was not going to stop there, when he gave out the rage he was holding in a cold part of his chest. It was just trying to work out the hows and the wheres. But he had something to work with, he knew it deep down. And he was not going to squander it, this time.

He was still wallowing in hate replaying again every word that his wife had told him in the flood of words she had given up. Then it clicked like Ares own spear in the heart, and in a blink of an eye the dots started to fly into place. One of the cylon basestars would be leaving this system soon. Four fully loaded modern Basestars going against one old Battlestar and one new Battlestar. Those were some long odds in a space battle any day of the week. That was not counting that both of those same two Battlestars. Had not been fully manned or equipped when they had pulled out on so short of a notice, because of the cylons surprise return. Now three vs two, that was a whole another ballgame all together. The Beast should be able to take on two of the cylon ships all by herself, even with a low skilled Battlestar commander like Lee Adama as her master. That would leave the Bucket only having to deal with one of the cylon capital ship. If the Oldman could not deal with one Basestar, than he was not as good as Bill Adama thought he was. Saul felt a very not friendly smile slowly form on his lips, as he reached across table and started to make coded notes on a handy pad of paper. It was going to be the first step, in paying the cylons back. As the smile went straight to evil on Saul's face, he thought that the good part was that they did not even know it, yet.

Saul did not get much sleep that night in the chair by the table, and when the sun came up again he did not need the alarm of the cylons announcing the lifting of the curfew to wake up. He was out into the human camp's early morning air, as soon as he could without the cylons picking him up for busting curfew. His first stop this early morning was to the school tent that Laure ran. He wanted to make sure, that she would know what was going on first. If this did not work the way he hopped it would, she would be in charge of the military part of the Colonial resistance. He was going to have to take himself out of the chain of command for everything for the near future. He had now been compromised, and his only play was to use this knowledge against the cylons as best he could. If this did not work, he had a backup plan. That would take him and his wife out of the equation permanently, if he needed to do it that way. He would not let his wife be forced to bed that cylon again, he would die first. He had what he need already back in his shack, and he was not afraid to use the knowledge to remove themselves from the chess board.

As it turned out, Saul was lucky that when he entered the opened tent that it held only the one person. Laura Roslin could tell that something was wrong, as soon as Saul entered the tent. The tent flap barely had time to close behind him in point, he had started talking almost too soon. She was not happy to hear, what his wife had been doing. But this act had given them some priceless information, as well as it had kept Saul out of a cylon prison cell or a bullet to the back of the head. At least for now and according to Ellen, she had not told the cylons anything about the tunnel. Or any other important bit of information about what was really going on in the camp, under the cylon's noses. Between the two of them, they came up with a few different plans that might work as fall back plans. In the end, all would use what Ellen had done against the cylons. When the first children showed up for today's class, Saul left the tent.

While Saul was getting some food in the large cook tent to try to fill the empty space in his body, one of the runners passed a note to him. It was a report from the non-13th tribe Earthers, which made Saul's eyebrow climb to the top of his bald head. They had found and marked enough hiding spots, which they and Chief Tyrol thought were safe for their suggested plan. They now had enough for all of the Colonial atmosphere capable transport craft, all in their small local area of the planet. Saul Tigh did not know it, but he had a smile on his face a mile wide. It was not a pleasant sight, and it disturbed a number of people that had been setting close to the table he had been using that morning. It even caused some of people sitting around him to physically leave the tables, even before they had finished their morning meal, with some haste. Saul did not notice the looks coming from the other long tables or that people nearest him had walked away.

Saul refolded the paper and put it in his pocket, and then quickly finished his fish laced soup. He made sure that he skipped out on the fruit they had put on his plate. On the way out of the tent he passed it to the first leg leach he passed. He need to address that note, but instead he and went first to check back in on his wife. He brought in a covered bowl for her to eat, but she would not want it for a few more hours at least. She was hurting both from the drinking, and the confession venting she had done in the night. Saul had been rewarded with a powerful hug when he returned to his shack.

While he had been out, she had woken up for some reason, and finding him not there not long after the sun had come up. She had not reacted well, and had emptied one of the bottles he had started on before passing back out. But not before she could start drinking the second bottle on the table, he again carried back to bed. Saul left a note on the food, telling his wife that he would be back around for the covered bow. He was hopping that he would be back around the time of the mid-day meal time. He made sure to write down that he loved her, and not to worry about the past. Deep down he doubted the words would work, but he felt that it was worth the effort. In the end, it was the thoughts which counted the most in the end. He had not even though about, what might have gone through her mind. When she had waken-up this morning, and found that he was not there. After the note was done and attached to the food, Saul still had his duty to perform. He next went to the transmitter cache that he had notified that he was coming over, and waited till the schedule contact by the Colonial Raptor.

############

Out at the edge of the solar system there was a brief flash of light and energy, which was hidden from view by a conveniently placed nonmetallic rock body. Those types of bodies were very rare to find in this system for some reason. A boxy shaped Raptor settled into a low orbit of that same blocking rocky body, with a few puffs of gasses from different parts of the craft. This would bring the little craft into line of sight with the planet that was closer to the warm star, than the small Colonial made craft was. As soon as the built in systems on this craft told the two occupants that they were locked on. More small jets mounted around the small interstellar craft fired again, stopping it from moving outside of a very precise orbital path. This would keep the craft from breaking the faint communication lock, it had just made with the ground base systems on the life barring world but cool world fifteen AUs away. This task was workable only because of the skills of the crew of this Colonial craft.

Kat had just loosened her crash straps, and wiggled around in the chair to get a little more comfortable in the small craft's only pilots seat. She put her little to big boots against the side protective glass of the cockpit, so that she could stretched out her legs some more. She was getting ready for what normally was a long and very dull wait deep in space. Just like she had done on very third day, for the last few weeks. She did not even notice when, Skulls put his hand on the side of his helmet, while she had been getting comfortable in the small area of her cockpit.

Skull's hand flew up to his helmet as soon as his system found targeted area. He strained to hear what his Vox system was passing along. When he was sure that he was picking up a carrier signal, he let the pilot know. "Contact, we are going to receive a transmission." Skulls started to push buttons, so that his system could record whatever they picked up, or were about to pick up. Normally they would be on station for hours before they picked up the carrier waves, something important must be on the way to them. Both the EO and Pilot waited for the transmission to be collected by their systems, they were completely useless to do anything else. Before the coming of the cylons sneak attack, the pair of crew-members, would not have been able to know what was being sent up to them on the communications system. The Colonial military had been very concerned about anyone reading the mail, as it was called. Bill Adama and Lee Adama had decided that the pilot and EO should know what was going on around them. That way they could handle some of the simpler questions, which might be sent to them from Colonel Tigh or Roslin. It was not likely, but this was a more flexible system that what the book said they should do, or would even need. Sometimes the book just got stuff wrong, when compared to real life.

While Kat was listing to her receiver, her eyes just got bigger and bigger until the message had finally ended. She could hardly breathe. The information she had just heard was incredible, when she could breathe again she had something to use it for. "Holy Frak! Skull! Spin up the jump drive, we are out of here right Fraking now!" She should have waited for when her shift was scheduled to end, but this report was way over her pay grade and it did not need that much brain power to figure it out. She wanted to get this hot potato out of her bivouac, as fast as she safely could. If the Admiral wanted her to come back, she would and finishes her sift in nice and quiet. She was betting that the Oldman would not do that, and the backup crew would be sent out at worse. Skull's sent a message back to the ground station that they had received the data, and were doing the bug out boogie to get the message to base as quick as they could. After that was done, he made sure the recorded data was safely locked down, and then started to spin up the very small and powerful interstellar engine. His hands were moving faster than his mind could properly functions. It was all muscatel memory as his hands few across a dozen different areas on his combat position.

The Raptor's crew was doing two things at once. While Skulls was doing his job, Kat was doing hers in the front seat. As soon as she had finished talking or ordering Skulls, her own hands were flying across her own instruments. The boxy craft soon had small jets from around the craft started to fire, and it looked like the small craft went from seeming frozen in time to doing a high speed flip going end over end. That is until the craft was now facing the opposite direction, which it had been facing only a few seconds before. The big twin engines fitted between the twin tails of the craft were primed and ready then white and blue hot flame shot of them. The larger engines did not fire at anywhere near the maximum rated thrust, that they were normally rated for or excepted to use in combat. That would have been like sending a huge flare off right next to their hiding spot. That would have been seen by everyone look anywhere in the general location of the Raptor. This would tell them, being the cylons that they had been spied on by the Colonial Navy. As soon as the jump drive was charged, and the orbital rock was blocking any unwanted eyes or sensors. The little spy craft winked out of existence once more. That little energy wave sent from the planet, would start the ball rolling on the next phase of combat between the humans and cylons.

############

While Saul Tigh was planning a future mission, something was happening not too far away in woods away that surrounded the camp that held him. Due to the increasing attacks on the patrols of cylons and the losses this has caused to the larger cylon units. The cylons had to change the routine for the human wood cutting detail. That the Colonials still needed to do just to keep warm as well as to make a few odds and ends out of the wood. If the Cylons had planned better, they might have brought enough supplies that they, could have forced the Colonials to stop without causing many issues. But they had not done that, and unless they wanted a large number of the groups of the last humans to die of hypothermia. They had to allow the wood cutting to continue for the time being. John was perfectly happy to let that fate happen to the humans, but the others had out voted him. It had not taken long to work out that whoever was attacking the cylons had not attacked a wood cutting detail directly. That peace had not happened to some of the guarding cylons, both human form and Centurion on the outer ring from the detail. Now, they had been known to disappear from time to time. This had caused the human forms to plan fewer, but larger details to fill the need for fuel and raw material for the detained humans.

Jason Adams had just been a scout when he had come to this planet, but he had slowly built up a nice little combat force over the time he had been on this planet. This combat force was now made up of even mix of people. Who had come to this planet on the same ships he had, and the Colonials that had escaped from under the cylons. He had liked scouting, and he even was pretty good at it. But the money and prestige was better for those that were more combat orientated, and less into just sneaking around unnoticed by an enemy. So he had gathered together this group of combat troops, all who accepted him as their commander.

They had a mix bag of weapons, a few loaned from the ships stores, others that they had brought with them, or bought on the open market. They also had some Colonial weapons that they had taken from the bodies of the human form cylons, instead of turning them in. These mainly went to the Colonials in his group. It was a hodgepodge of people, but they all had one thing in common. They wanted to take out as many cylons as they could, in the shortest amount of time. All without getting themselves shot up, it the process. They had been picking off cylons in the odd small group that might have gotten separated or out of support range from a larger group of cylons. But as the cylons started moving in ever larger and larger groups, things change again. They had been having more and more problems finding targets, which they could take down, without getting whipped out in the process. The new group only had weapons and armor that they had access to, or could afford. That translated to hand weapons and some unpowered armor for protection. Unless they could score something big that could let them trade it for a multi-million credit powered battle armor. Well let's just say that they were going to find it harder, and harder to do what they wanted to do, and live to tell about it. They might have to transfer over to fall under Major Weston's command, and be turned just into another unit under his slowly growing command. That was not what this group of independent minded people wanted to do, if they could avoid it.

That was why they were going after the wood cutting detail today. The detail had grown and now had to around fifteen Colonials. They would do the tree falling, and cutting the huge logs into more manageable size with power tools brought out to them by the cylons. The transports for the wood cutting detail personnel, and wood. Would be provided by three large six by six wheeled cargo trucks. They all were in the five ton cargo capabilities range. The fourth and last vehicle at least was a nicer armored wheeled transport, which would be used for the human form cylons. The transports had been viewed and imaged a few dozen times already. One of the Colonials had said it was an armored Sports Utility Vehicle normally used by the very rich or highly placed members in the entertainment industry. It most defiantly, not a military grade transports. The cylons who used this were the supervisors, of both the humans and Centurions. The ground mounted escorts was supplied by a full cylon combat company of Centurions.

The human attackers would be outnumbered, with about a hundred sixty cylons to be taken on by about twenty members of Jason's unit. And that number was not counting any of the human form cylons, and any of the Colonials that might be helping the other side. Seeing armed humans working with the cylons, was something that had already been noticed and reported back to Major Weston some time ago. Josh had not been surprised by this information, when he had been briefed about them. On Earth, it was not uncommon and they even had a term for it "Turn Coat". The growing number of Colonials that had joined the fight, had not been that understanding. When they had been told that some Colonials were helping the cylons. Jason and his closest command staff had already made notes on who to watch, if this became an issue.

Jason and his group had two things going for them on this ambush that they were planning. The first was that no one had attack the wood cutting detail besides one or two single culling's, and the second major thing. Was that each person in his group had heavier body armor than any Colonial had used or could dream of, before coming to his planet and meeting the Earthers Even the Colonial in the group, had the old homemade armored suits that had come through the rift with Jason's group, all of those years ago. Josh had worn a suit of that crap, back when he was younger man and in the town militia. And even back then, he had thought that they were death traps, if he got into any real combat. But against the lower powered weapons, so far deployed by the cylons? They should be okay for a few heavy battles, before he would start to worry about their usability to protect his people.

Jason idea was that after the battle was over. That they would be able to use two or three of the wood cutting cargo vehicles to load up salvaged metal. That metal would come from the hopefully plentiful Centurion wrecks, they were going to make in the attack. Also any type of larger cargo transports were in short supply on this planet, even back at the Settlement they could use more. Any that they could take, would be worth a fair price all by themselves. Then add in all of the metal they hoped they would be carrying in their open back cargo area. Jason was hoping that it could be the big payday, that his band needed badly.

The sun was now up and Jason and his people had been in position since local midnight. Jason was again idle thinking again about the low quality of the armor some of his people had to fight in. He hopped that they would not have to see firsthand, it those bits of crap could take the damage that a Raider or Heavy Raider might dish out. That is if they were caught in a ground attack run, from one of those flying cylon attack machines that had increased in number…again. Jason was pulled out of that line of thought, because the first of the wheeled cargo trucks made the turn on the well-used dirt road. Jason was waiting for the cutting detail to be as close to the planned attack point, than he could fire the flare tube in his right hand. That launch would only happen when the group of Colonials and cylons had set up in the center of the rough cleared area, just like always had done.

Jason waited and waited as the watched the cylon controlled humans pull into and then stop in the center of his kill zone. Even as the humans started to get out of the back of one of the cargo trucks, Jason fired the flare into the air. It went up at an angle away from his hiding position in the tree line and it was visible to the maximum number of his people. The firing into the group of cylons had started before the flare had reached the high point of its flight arc over his head, and Jason smiled. Threw the ION rifle in his hands he could already see the Cylons were falling to the mud. All before the flare started its fall back to the ground as gravity took over the control of that device. Surprise was total and complete on both the cylons, and the humans in the kill zone. The Humans were quick off the maker and were diving for whatever cover, they thought they might have from the incoming weapons fire or attack. The humans could not hear about the attack until the cylons started impacting the targets. The Colonial made weapons did not fire until the cylons started to fire back. By then the humans were not the only ones trying to find cover, any cover they could get.

The One was both scared and upset all at the same time, and rolled into one Fraking big emotion. He had volunteered to take this detail, because of the fact that it had been the quietest of all of the assignments open outside of the prison camp. He had a private project he wanted to work on, but his name had come down on the list maintained by the Hybrids. So he had to do go outside of the safety of the camp and into the tree line. John was not the only human form cylon that wanted to have a few quite meetings with a nice looking female human. The Number One had reasoned out that it doing this detail, it would buy him two weeks to what he wanted without interruption. Than it was worth the low risk of guarding the wood cutting detail. Besides the quite time on this task would give him time to day dream about her, and make a few more delicious plans.

The Number One was not that aware of what was going on after he exited the armored VIP transport. He had been so surprise by the surprise attack. That he had almost been taken out, when he did not dive for cover quick enough. Like the rest of the humans and human forms had done, at the first sign of an attack. He had read the reports that had come in from the limited survivors that had downloaded afterwards, or after a battle analysis had been done from a half dozen battle sites. But this had been his first time outside the confines of the human camp. He had been on the cylon resupply supply ship, to act as supervisor of the supplies in its hull. After talking to some of the other Number One's, he had decided to stick around. He had been even happier to stay, after he found out what John had been up to in person. Now that was not looking like it had been that good of an idea he had ever had, after all.

He ducked down on instinct, as something unidentified struck a massive tree next to him. The tree was blown in half at about his waist high. He had a bit of luck today and the impact energy, pushed the now falling tall tree away from him or it would have easily crushed him. With a quickly look up, he assess that he was safe, at least from that threat. The top part of the tree was falling away from him, and that as all that mater at the moment as the Number One. Now he tried to put some more distance between the attackers and his precious hide. He did this by first diving behind the tallish stump that had just been made by a silent weapon. This gave him time to think a little deeper, than he had for the last few seconds. Now he could see a possible way out of this mess, which he felt he never should have been near in the first place. He used those cylon augmented legs to good use, after looking around him and around the stump that was giving him some cover.

While he was running as fast as he could, through the woods his mind was still working as fast as his legs were moving. He was multitasking, and also thinking about the attack as well as his escape. He was a cylon. So he could multitask, like normal humans could breathe and see at the same time. The wood cutting escort detail had been going, just like it had since the last change to the SOP. The four wheeled transports had pulled into the slowly growing clearing, in the middle of a thick patch of softwood trees. Those trees that had turned out to have worked, so will for heating the human made shacks. All the humans had unloaded from the back of one of the trucks in a tidal wave of bodies. A Number Four had been talking to the group of humans, for an unknown reason. Then it had been comply blown in half with no warning, which he had picked up with his cylon modified ears. The One that had not picked out a name yet, had just happened to be looking that way. That had been when the human form cylon, had dropped to the muddy ground in two very messy parts right before his eyes. He did not connect what was going on for what seemed like a long time, at least for a cylons. He did notice that all of the humans had dropped to the mud, and were also crawling through the mud in all different directions. He had no idea what they were playing at. He turned his head to see more of the nearby Centurions joining the Four on the ground, then he heard what he could understand as weapons fire from somewhere off to one side. That had been when the tree was hit with a silent, but obviously very powerful weapon of some kind. It all had happened so fast. It was way faster than the Number One was used to having to deal with.

He moved from the new tree stump, and soon he was on the other side of the transports. He had stopped running, coming to a complete stop from a full run in only a pair of steps. He left a twin slide make the mud that looked like brown snow skies. It would not have seemed too be safe of a move, but he put an emergency call out to pull all of the surviving cylons on this detail toward him. That was not working out as well as he hopped, because when the surviving cylons started to move in one direction. The fighting seemed to be pulled right towards him, along with those same redeploying cylons.

When the Number One heard the acknowledgement of his orders, it took a few long second for him to understand that they were now bring the incoming fire right towards him! "That was not the way it was supposed to work!" He was yelling within the confines of his own mind. He was trying to figure out what to do next, when he saw it. It looked to his untrained eyes, like some kind of human shaped reptile skinned monster in the nearby tree line. The only reason that he knew, without a doubt it was a threat and not his mind playing tricks on him. Was the Colonial military rifle in its human looking hands attached to the odd looking arms? The muzzle looked large enough for the cylon to crawl down the fraking thing, and it was pointed at him! One part of its computer enhanced brain knew that was imposable, but it still looked that way to him. He froze like a deer spot lighted on a dark road by a sedan, and just waited for the reptile skinned monster to end his life with a single pull of the Colonial made trigger.

One of the Centurions must have noticed the movement at the edge of the tree line. It turned snake quick, and used its built in machine gun to stitch a line of bullets across the massive chest of the two legged animal. The human form cylon let out a breath, which it had not known it was holding. And turned to see which of the Centurions had saved his life. He would not be able to query the Centurion to ask what its number was, as he had intended to do. That was because its chest of the large Centurion exploded out wards, as something fast moving and hard, turned the metal cylon inside out. All in a flash of heat, light, noise and now slightly used parts were flying through the air. You know, used rifles only dropped once and great for resale.

When the One turned back around, to try to get a better look at the strange beast that he had seen a second before. He knew it would have been the closest that anyone of his kind had been able to get, since they had landed on this fraking god forsaken mud ball of a planet. Then he had another one of those awful human traits built into the human forms reached up and froze his spine, and that one was shock. The human shaped animal started to rise again from the mud, right before the Number One's eyes. The brain of the cylon was having a hard time possessing what he was seeing. There was no way something could do that. Not after it had taking a dozen or so hit from a cylon weapon at this short of a combat range. The Centurion's weapons fire should kill anything that it hit, that hard. The Number One had seen Colonial Marines and ground troops hit, with that amount of firepower. And they had never gotten back up after the event that is unless their body, was being carried off by a Centurion. As this monster was rising from the mud, part of the brain of the One was cataloging what it was seeing just like the machine it was. The other part of its brain, the human part, was frozen solid into inaction by another human trait… panic.

The skin looked reptilian, but different. The monster had human like hands, pointed ears like a wolf's or a daggit, and with a smooth armored like head of tan and green. What sent a chill through the cylon, was the eyes in the monsters head. They were black, glossy black, and triangle shaped and stared unblinking at the One. They were not the eyes of any living being that a One, or any other cylon had seen before this day. The cylons had another very human reaction. Its bowls let go inside of its cloths in one wave of stinking, wet mess running down both of its legs. Then like a bolt out of the blue, a long forgotten story that another One had read before the attack popped into his head. It had been in one of the old temples of Caprica scrolls. This was a thing from legions all the way back to Kobal. This did not look exactly like, what he had read and studied about it. But it was close enough for the One to connect all of the dots. He now knew the monster had a name and a name that come through time for all them, be it human or cylon. They must be some kind of griffin, or manticore, or chimera, or any of a dozen different names that came to the top of the One's head in a flood of matching images. This was something that the one god or any of the Colonial Gods, should not have let live. But somehow they were alive and well, and killing cylons in job lots. The One now noticed something that wet and warm running down both of his legs.

He would later clam to others. That he did not know what happened next, but the other members of his line would know exactly what he did. The One had used his quick reflexes to turn off to one side of the open area, and he started to run as fast as he could deeper into the trees. He would not get far, before he was helped along his running path. Suddenly the One flew through air for about four feet without his legs helping in the action, then he fall face first into the smelly damp ground of the forest floor. He had been shot in the back by five heavy military grade rifle rounds impacting within a quarter of a second in total elapsed time. All of those fire bullets had sharp and hard rounds, and had hit within a hand width of area of a woman's fist. Then more of those heavy projectiles hit other places of his body before it had stopped moving in reaction to the fall and the pain of the first bullets strikes. It had happened so fast that even the hyper quick cylon mind. Could not register that the hits had come not from the same area that the attackers had coming from. But they had come from the area of safety he had being running from.

The shooter would be the eighteen year old female Tauron. The one which this Number One had always wanted to spend some private time with, the since first day this cylons had been ground side from the supply ship. She had not like that idea, and for one of the few times in the last few years, she found out that she could do something about it to change the situation. After the third visit from this Number One, she had "moved" to a new living area. Now she had to do that every few days, and still the cylon had found her again and again. She had been contacted by someone of Saul's group, and they had helped her get on the wood cutting details. At least this way she could get away from the cylon's attention, for a few hours any way. As soon as they could arrange it. She would be going out the tunnel, even if they felt that it might be a risk to the movement. If that did not work, she could make a run for it from the detail. That was a risk also, with the increased number of cylons over watching them. She was getting a few things together, and she was more than willing to make her own way out of the camp if the resistance did not help her. Now it looked like she would not have to wait any longer, and it was going to be a lot sooner than she had even hopped for.

She was still standing or more apt, she looming over the fallen and still leaking multiple body fluid human form cylon. From her hip she lowered the weapon to where it was almost touching the back of the cylon and she pulled the trigger, again and again, and again. That had been when some of Jason's group had found her, with the still smoking but now empty rifle in her slightly shaking hands. The three of them had just passed a look between the three combat hardened veterans. They did not get any close to the strange woman with a weapon that might still be loaded. Not to mention she had just proved that she knew how to use the fraking thing. At least not before a female member of the group in the homemade armor joined the four standing over the One's prostrate bodies. The woman had been the one who had taken the weapons fire, before she could shoot the human from. She was the one to first approach the maybe not very stable armed younger woman. There were something's that you just did not want to ask questions about, and this looked to be high on that list for the three men. Sadly it was not an unknown accordance anymore, and deep down those men grew even angrier at the cylons. They were mad at the cylons, and they were mad at themselves for not having been able to stop it. They had no idea that this was a common response, given the situation they had just walked into.

One of the males in the group walked up to the body that had more a lot more holes in it, than it was every supposed to have. He was shaking his head from side to side as he searched the body of the human like cylons. He was not expecting to find anything useful, but he gave it a shot. To his surprise when he flipped it over, was that it did not have any body armor on of any known kind. But the twenty or so holes in the back would have made that any body armor useless anyway for salvaging. He made a note of the absence, because only a few of the human forms had been taken out so far. That did not have some kind of body armor on, when they left the safety of the compound they guarded. It was generally thought that any human forms without any body armor, where the true REMFs of the cylons race.

The target of the young woman rage still produced two double barreled pistols and a lot of ammunition for the pair of hand held weapons. The male started to shake his head before pulling out the ear mounted radio like device from what was left of the male cylon body. The man patting down the dead cylon, passed the device to a second person. This person had found two good palm sized rocks. With a hammer and anvil set up, the cylon device was smashed into small bits after four or five hard hits of the hammer stone. This little dance had become second nature to the humans, when dealing with the human forms carcass.

With the maybe tracking device being dealt with, the searcher was thinking. This human like cylon, must have watched way too many war movies or shoot'em ups before coming out into the forest for the first time. Very few people could or did used the two gun mojo in the real word. But it did look good on the entertainment show that is unless, you're where watching them with some real operators. This cylons firearm and ammunition collection added more items, to help the cause against the cylons occupation of this planet. He was thinking about those twin pistols so hard. He almost missed the leather like bag of for carrying large amounts of Colonial cubits tied under the jacket of the red leaking cylon. That is, it was almost missed. The people who did these types of searches, knew what they were doing. With a quick flick of a pocket knife from the 13th tribe, the nylon covered pencil thick steal core wire was separated and the prize into his waiting hand.

The man was still kneeling down and looking at the human like form, which was leaking out blood into the already saturated mud. He was shaking his head from side to side, and he had a full on evil grin plastered all over his face. "Bud, I don't know what you did, but I just wish she would have used something that would have stopped you from getting a new body." He wanted to spit on the ground, but that would leave a sign that might be picked up by the enemy. He swallowed the gathered spit, and he gave a smile that was by no means friendly and rose from his kneeling position. "We will see you again your fraker, and maybe next time you will put paid in full on your fraking ass." He collected anything that might be useful to the humans, and left the body to finish cooling in the mud. The young Tauron woman had heard her fellow Colonial addressing the face down cylon, but she did not say a word. She had not said much of anything since the shooting had started.

Jason was talking to the group of newly "Freed Colonials". While he was talking, one of the Colonials that had been with the group the longest, was acting as a translator for him to the gathered Colonials. "Okay if any of you want to join us, we will take you in." He stopped talking, and pointed to each of the four humans that were armed and armored but not his people. None of these pointed out armed humans had fired on or into the human attackers. Just like they had been told to do by Colonel Tigh before they took this job. "You do not have to join the fight against the cylon, if you leave with us. The people in the resistance would love to have you no matter what. Or you can just keep living the way, you have been living."

The four armed and armored Colonials had almost caused a problem, when some of the unarmed Colonials found them. They had wanted to take a few pounds of flesh from those four, even if it was with their bare hand. That group was not buying that the armed ones were on their side in real life, and not working for the cylons like they had been lead to believe by the mouth piece of Baltar. The group of four had been saying the password, which they were supposed to give to anyone after some shooting had started. They were yelling it to anyone within ear shot, so that they would not be taken as a hostile force in the middle of a firefight. It just was too bad that none of the unarmed Colonials, knew the password that had been set-up beforehand. It took a couple of members of Jason's group, getting between them and their fellow Colonials to stop any bloodshed. They even pointing there odd looking guns in a not so friendly manner at them, before they would listen to reason of any kind.

Jason continued talking in his even if loud voice. "You can make your own decisions, just let one of our group know. Right now you will have to walk back to you camp. We are taking all of the transports with us when we pull out." Jason waved his hands in the air. "If we need to change plans, I will get word back to you as soon as I can. We may ask some or all of you for help doing some manual labor jobs, before we leave. If you want to help out great. If not? Please stay out of the way till we leave."

He stopped talking in mid thought, when a young woman. That Jason could tell was a Colonial, came out of the woods holding a Colonial made battle rifle in her small hands. She was following on her heals, were some of his fighters. The one that happened to be a woman was only by about ten feet or so had a strange look on her older face. The pair were coming from the same general direction, that the last human form cylon had gone into forest at the run. It normally would not have caught his attention, but for the truly evil smile on the young woman's pretty face. Jason made a note to find out more, when he had the spare time. With that mental note made, he went back to talking. "If you would like to help, we need to clean up the battle site. We don't want to leave any more that we have to, for the fraking cylons to reuse against use or any of your people tomorrow or the next day. That includes any shell casings spent or not, that are lying around this field. I will ask that you, please do not start walking back to camp. Until my people are ready to leave. Thank you for your time." Jason smiled and waved to the group of open mouthed Colonials, which made up the wood cutting detail today. He had a lot of things to do, before they could start heading back into the "safety" deep forest. Jason looked around the wreckage covered field and smiled. Things looked to have gone as planned. That just meant that he was more on edge than normal.

He had just turned walk away from the large crowd, when someone touched his arm. He turned to look at the twenty something man who was speaking in what Jason knew was Caprican, but Jason did not have a clue what he was saying at that high rate of speed speaking. Luckily Jason was soon saved by his "Second in Command" that had been translating for him, to the rest of the wood cutting detail for his little speech. He stepped up, almost coming physically between the Colonial and the Earther.

"He is asking if you're really from the 13th Tribe of Kobal. And where is Earth, and her armies and ships." The other man was trying not to grin at the discomfort, he knew this was going to cause Jason. This was a pretty standard question, but that did not mean that it did not get old being asked it. He knew Jason was already way past tired, of this one question coming up almost every day. Besides sometimes you needed to poke at your friends to keep them on their toes. It was supposed to let your friends know that you still care for them. Even if they might be planning a little homicide in response to your poking.

Jason gave a tired smile back to the other young man, and reached into a small pocket fixed on the upper arm of his combat smock. With some flourish, he pulled out a plastic covered card, and handed it to the younger man still reaching for his forearm. Jason then waited for him to read text printed on it, and give some kind of acknowledgment that he could read standard Caprican script.

The Colonial at first did not know what to do with the card, until Jason tapped the card. Then the Colonial could see that it was printed letters in both Caprican and English. Even though the younger man did not know it was English. The card was a series of questions and answers. It stated that, yes they were from a planet called Earth, but that where many places called that name. And none of them know who, what, or where the Thirteenth tribe was. His people just wanted the cylons off this planet as fast as they could. And they were willing to fight, and help with the Colonials to see that goal happen. The card also covered the basic laws the Earthers worked under. Like freedom of speech, but you could not make threats to someone, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. It also told them, that if they had any more questions, to please wait till they were at a support site. That would be, where someone could give them a more detailed to answer their questions. Besides it would be in a safer environment. The last statement on the card said for the person reading this to nod their heads, to signal that they understood the printed statements. It also asked for them to please pass the card back to the owner, so that it could be reused to help other Colonials.

The stunned Colonial nodded his head up and down, and handed the water proof card back to Jason. With the handing off of the card, he was turning to rejoin a group of his peers about a dozen feet away. They were forming a line of bodies, to speed up the flow of used and damaged Centurion parts to one of the slowly filling up cargo trucks. The two men did not say anything as they watched the young Colonial leave, and found a spot in the line of his fellow humans.

The Colonial tiled his head to one side and kind of turned to the Rift Earther, which was his commander. "Jason that was a first time with the card thing? How did you come up with it?" This was asked by the Second in command of this group, in slightly broken English that was understandable by the members of this group and a growing number of the people from Earth.

Jason smiled. "I wish I could claim credit for that idea, but I saw Major Weston pull one out the last time we were at the support camp a few days back. He was nice enough to give me an extra, he had in his pocket. This was the first time I remembered that I had it, when it might be useful. He told me that it was modified of what the scouts had used for the first few weeks after contact was made with your people." Jason stopped talking, when they were joined by a third member of his combat group. Suddenly, the little flash card was not that important.

Jason smiled at the older woman that had come up beside him, and his second in command. Stacy was great at lots of things, but she could not lead a horse to water in the middle of a heat wave. However she was good with numbers, and that was what he needed in his group, more than another just another average shooter. "So Stacy? How are we looking at recovering some of our ammunition cost expenditures for this attack? Will we break even on is this one, or is going to cost us when it is all over…again? " The last four mission that Jason had run, the best one had been a little better then break even for the cost of ammunition replacement and armor repair bill after the attack.

Stacy moved a lock of medium length of jet black hair out of her face. "For our weapons, we are good. The trade of one of the trucks will cover most, if not all of the energy used and any repairs that we need to do after this attack and the others." She was referring to the Rifts Earths weapons and armor that over half of his group used. "For the Colonial junk, I don't think that we are not going to break even. Not by a lot. That is unless you want to strip the black shirts." She was pointing to the group of human armed guards that the cylons had thought were on their side. "That might get us up to par on reloads. The rest…. Well I don't count my chickens before they hatch. We will just have to see what we can get back to a collection point. It would have been helpful in one way, if the Centurions had been packing a few of the 15mm weapons."

Jason tilted his head to one side and was thinking about the numbers, then the corners of his mouth turned down. "Stacy you know that we can't do that. They need all the weapons and ammunition that they can get inside the compound. We will just have to make due, just like we have been doing all along. Too bad the cylons have not made a fly over, if we could take out one or two craft, which would be a huge boast." Jason gave himself a shiver, as his voice trailed off and Stacy starting making the counter hex horns sign in the air with her right hand as soon as the words had fallen out of his mouth.

Jason eyes went wide, when his words registered to his own hears. "I cannot believe, I just said that." All three of them did a quick scan of the sky without thinking about what they were doing. If they could have recovered even a larger part, of one empty hull of one of the smaller Raider class craft. They would rake in the chits, that is if they could successfully recover it. And that is, if they lived through the experience and that was not a guarantee thing on this world. Now that Jason was reasonably sure, that they were not about to be bombed. He looked back at Stacy. "Who would have thought that we could take out all of our targets so fast? That they could not get a call for help out. Not that I'm complaining, but it you all have to admit that it strange."

Before he could say more, they were joined by the young man that had searched the shot up Number One that had been running in the woods. That is until it had been put down like a rabid animal. Just like his line had been acting over these last few years. He nodded to acknowledgment to each of the people standing in the group. His command of English was considered to be the second best under Jason's command. "Hey Stacy you might want to add this to your little list, for your accounts receivables." He passed over the two over and under pistols that looked to be of Colonial manufacturer, but there was no way to know for sure. By now most people just said they were Colonial made to keep things simple. The young man then also reached into his many cargo pockets and handed over a dozen extra full loaded extended count magazines for the hand held weapons. He even had a dozen extra rounds for the big bore under mount high explosive launcher in two sleeves of six small cannon rounds each. Why a cylon would have a heavy weapon, which was designed to kill metal cylons? That was very odd, but not worth the energy to think about right then. The explosive round would have been major over kill, for even a body armored Colonial Marine.

Jason was watching him hand over loaded magazine after magazine, out of what seemed like an endless cargo pocket of his combat smock. Jason raised one eyebrow and could not help himself and asked what was on his mind. "Were did you get that?" It was the biggest haul, which had been recovered from any of the other human form cylons they had taken down today. Most only had one weapon with maybe two full magazines for weapon, and that was counting the one in the blasted thing. Most of time the weapons ended up damaged ether by the weapons fire or the cylon falling on the things after being shot.

As the answer to the unit's commander questions. The young man pointed toward the same young girl, that Jason had seen exiting the wood line with one of his people a while ago. "She took down an Old Man type, with a dropped rifle she picked up from somewhere. And when I say, that she took down the cylon, what I mean. Is that she put a bullet in each of his organs, and she did it in alphabetical order. Then she just walked away after steering at him some big daggers into him, so I checked him out. I don't know who this One was, but he was not wearing any body armor at all. He did not even have any of that undershirt crap on. He might have been a wannabe gunslinger packing two gun style, without a long shooter." He reached into his ammunition pack on his right hip, which had more uses than just carrying ammunition. Out of that one pocket, he brought out about a two foot long by six inch x three inch black bag. The ends were thin like metal reinforced leather like strips that had been cleanly cut near the metal belt like attachment device. "Oh and he was packing this under his outer jacket and shirt." He tossed it to the leader of the group with a large smile on his thin rat like face. He had already had just a little looked inside, and thought that Jason would be the best one to handle all of the problems. That the money belt might bring up in the very near future. With the items handed over, he step back and away from the group of leaders. It was time for them to do their jobs, and he had already done his for the day.

Jason caught the money belt toasted to him in midair, with the ease of someone with great hand eye coordination. He had seen this type of item before, it had been from one of the Colonials that had wanted help in buy some equipment. That one had been filled with mostly Colonial made paper money. Paper money was really only useful for one thing, now and that stuff was also in very short supply. When Jason caught the belt, it gave a soft jiggling sound of metal coin rubbing against metal coin. It was not the sound of a stack of odd cut rectangle bills, which you would expect in a money belt. He raised one eyebrow to both Stacy, and the younger man while he unzipped the belt down the center and flat side of the belt. He was not sure what he was going to see, but he had a mental picture of what might be inside the cut belt.

The group of three were now in a closer huddle. And three sets of eyes were focused down as Jason opened the fabric, to display the prize it held within. A set of low whistle came from one of the small group. That was as a row of twenty gold cut cornered rectangles and a row of twenty silver cubits coins shined in the light of day. Jason ignored the other sets of eyes, and pulled one of the gold rectangles out of its holder in the belt to get a little closer look at the rectangle. He tossed it a few inches into the air, and let it land in his out stretched palm with a soft splat sound. He did this three or four times, to try to gauge the weight of the gold colored item they were steering at so intently. "I would say that it's a little over an ounce or as close to an ounce as you could want."

Jason then handed the rectangle coin over to the only Colonial in the group. Now he could get a better look, and maybe tell them something about it. After all it was not like the Earthers would have any idea about them. That is without some lab equipment and some free time, which they would not have this close to a battlefield.

The Colonial flipped it over and over in his hand, so that he could read the engraving on both sides of the small brick of gold. His eyes went huge, and his head snapped up to look at the others in the little group. His eyes were wide as what he was holding sunk into his brain as he spoke it aloud. "Holly FRAK! It's a 5O Cubit gold bullion brick from Sagittaron, and the silver ones? I would bet are going to be 10 bullion Cubits bars. Every planet made their own, some were move collectable that others. They are trading at quite a bit more than fifty cubits, now. Well since the bombings turned all the paper money, into nothing more than waste paper."

Jason pulled out one of the silver cut cornered bars, but he could not tell what the markings meant. He also handed the cut cornered rectangle over to the Colonial after he had looked over the odd sized bar. The Colonial was not that impressed with what he was calling a cubit. That is until he flipped it over, then he started get excited, very excited. "By the Fraking Gods!" That part was in English. What fallowed later was not. He looked at the other people with wide eyes, and realized that they had no idea what he was going on about. He had to pull out his little book that had been written as an English/Caprican conversion dictionary. He flipped around to a few different pages, before stopping after finding the list of the right words he wanted to use. He used the time to get his breathing, and mind back under control. He had expected to see just a silver cubit, which is not what he got. Now that he has the right words. "This is not a ten cubit silver coin. I have never seen one of these in person before, but from the markings." He pointed to both sides of the sliver cut corner rectangle. "This is an investment type of high value cubit. I remember seeing them list the price for these types of cubits, on the financial news channels at the close of every trading day back home."

Stacy was not known for her long patience, and was getting tired of waiting for this man to tell them what this odd shaped metal bar was in basic facts. Much less why, it was worth getting so excited about. When he had stopped talking for a few more seconds to catch his breath, or something. She went in with a tone, which would have stripped paint off battle armor at ten paces. "Well, are you going to tell us or what? I have things to do, before more tin men show up." Stacy just did not work that well with others.

The Colonial was still getting his head wrapped around what he had in his hand, and what was left in the money belt his boss was holding like it was full of coal rocks. "Its face value is marked as a hundred cubit coin, but this one is made of 99.9999 pure Platinum. Do all of the bars have this marking on the back side?" He was pointing to an odd fluid like design on one side of the bar, which was in his hand. He was trying to keep his hands steady, but it was wasted effort. He was fighting a tidal wave of emotions.

Jason now could understand why the Colonial had been so distracted. The same thing was affecting him now, in spades. They might have just hit the jackpot so larger. That it would make Amazon and Eva reputation seem small in comparison. He quickly checked all of the silver color bars in the money belt. To Jason's surprise, all nineteen silver bars that were left in the belt had the mark that was on the cubit in the other man's hand. "Well that changes things." Jason had a huge grin on his face, and his tone carried his smile. They just might now have enough in trade value, to get something other than a few Chipwell Challenger suites. He was thinking the next time he talked to Major Weston, he was going to be in for a major surprise.

Stacy could do the math in her head and probably was better at it, then any of the others standing around. Then her eyes went narrow as she worked the angles of the problem. It did not take her but a few heartbeats to notice that something was wrong. She pitched her voice to carry to the young man who had dropped this maybe bomb on them, and was still standing about five feet away from them. "That girl took down the cylon that was carrying this stuff, right?" She wanted to make sure of what she had thought, before she went father and crushed Jason's dream. She could see what Jason was thinking as easily as she could see the mud on his combat boots.

The young man nodded and knew where she was going with the comment. He had thought the same thing while walking back from the body of the cylon. "Yes she picked up a rifle, I think from one of the other human forms that was shot down early in the ambush. And she used it to take it out, a lot. I don't know if she took out the other cylon or not, but she still has the weapon. Or she did when she walked away from the body. But I think it's empty. I would bet that, she might not know, that she is carrying around a useless weapon." He quickly pointed to the girl in question. She was at the edge of a small group of colonials. She had a Colonial military battle rifle over her shoulder, and a set look on her young face.

Those few sentences took some of the spark out of Jason's eyes, all in less than a heartbeat. Jason and his group had a rule that said anyone who took down a major prize. Then it would be him/her or them, that would have get the reward for their actions. If it was taken out by his team, as part of a large group attack, it would be a little different on the details. They would still get to keep what they killed. But Jason would have been okay, if he asked them give up half of the value to the rest of the unit. This would be so that the group could buy supplies, for the rest of the whole group. The girl in question was not a member of the team, so that added another layer of legal issues that Stacy and Jason would have to fallow. By Jason's groups own rules. That would meant that she would not have to give them on dime, if she did not want to. She could even ask for everything they had taken from that Oldman type cylon down to his underwear, if she wanted to. There was nothing legally that Jason could do about it.

Jason looked around the group, then first stopped at his second in command and then to Stacy. "Would you please go talk to her, and explain what is going on." He was now looking at the only Colonial in the group, his second in command. "You might want to be quick about it, because unless I miss my guess. I think that she has noticed, that we are talking about her. She has that look of someone who is about to rabbit on us." He waved, and smiled at the girl who was steering back at them with large deer eyes. She had to look of a city rat about to bolt from the police or a pimp.

Stacy looked over at the girl with the rifle and picked her voice low. "Yea, she is going to rabbit. If two people walk over there, she is going to bolt. Maybe I should wait, and you go over to her first, and I wait to be called over if you need me."

The Colonial nodded at Jason and Stacy, with a sly smile on his face. He held out his hand and took the metal heavy belt from Jason. As he started walking toward the girl in question, he put both metal cubits back into their holders in side of the belt. "Hey you there, girl." He did not have to yell, but the group that was helping loads the scrap metal, all stopped and looked first at him and then her. This did not help her fragile state of mind, and before she could find a good way out of the local area. He finished his statement in the same voice. "You're not in any trouble. Would you please talk with me? I think the loading crew can get along for a while without you" He added this part hoping, that it would delay the girl from making a break for the wood line for a few more seconds.

The young woman looked around real quick first left and then right. She was trying to figure out if she should make a run for it, or not. It did not matter what the man walking towards her had said. She had been lied to before. She had some major trust issues, when it came to males. At least the ones that came with two legs. What made her decide not to run, was that there were too many of the armed and freakishly tall 13th Tribers. Besides the number, they also were too close to her, and blocking off any possible escape routes that she could see. Finally she shrugged her shoulders, and left the line that was tossing Centurion parts into the back of one of the cargo trucks that had been on the wood cutting detail.

When she was almost to the man walking towards her. She started to feel the urge to run building up in the lizard part of her brain, again. She fought it down, like she had done a hundred times before and centered herself. She set her shoulders, and did what came natural to someone with her life experiences so far. She went on the attack, with her first words that came to her mind. "What do you want?" She put as much attitude into her tone as she could muster. It sounded about right to her own ears, and deep down she like the tone. The military rifle slung across her back, gave her some support to the tone making and delivering department. She had already noticed that the people from her camp, were treating her differently than before she had joined the detail. It was almost like the way they treaded a Colonial Warrior, after the cylons surprise attack. So she was trying to channel this new found attitude, the way she thought they would do it.

The stranger had a sly smiled, and held up one hand to the teenager. The tone rolled off his back, like water off a ducks back. Some of it had to do with he had been a real Colonial warrior almost as long, as she might have been out of short pants. He knew the attitude, and he could tell that she was new to it. "You're not in trouble, woman. We just need to talk about a few things. What's your name anyway?" He made eye contact and kept it, with every word that had come out of his mouth. The set of his shoulders, and the rest of his body language was the same that was used when talking with an equal warrior, and not a child. He was expecting that she would know the difference, knowing why might take a little longer for her to understand.

The subtle shift in how the now closer man posture, had worked on the younger female. Her chin when up and her feet were now planted shoulder width apart. "Elias Howard, but everyone just calls me Crow. And you are?" She raised an eyebrow as she finished her question.

Yep, a street kid or close enough to it thought Alane. "Okay Crow it is. If you like? The Earthers are pretty flexible, if you want to change what you want your given name to be. They will ask for your given name on most legal documents, then for what they call a nickname."

When Elias nodded her head and that she was okay, and even like being called by her street handle. Nicknames or handles were a sign of someone with position or power, where she came from even before the cylons had come back. So when someone in the combat class was okay with using hers, she was happy on the inside. She also thought that she was careful not to show that happiness on the outside. This was the one of the few times, that she had that particular feeling in years. She did make a note of the information about changing your name with this group. That was not the Colonial way, at least not the Colonial way that she knew of and had grown up with. Maybe some things were starting to change for the people of the Colonies.

"I'm Alane Vickers. Everyone, and including these people, just call me AL." He pointed to the armed people that were helping pick out the odd bits metal, and but were at the same time. They were still keeping an eye up towards the sky, and their heads were always moving around in two different dimensions. "Jason and this group do have a few rules, you need to know about." He pointed back to the small group that was still watching her, like a bird of prey looking at a rabbit.

When she looked back to Al, she had almost missed what he was saying. "When you killed that cylon. Without needing any help from us. Well, you were entitled to keep anything of value from that cylon. That means whatever it had on its physical body, at the time it was put down. Since you're not part of our group before the attack. It has put us, as a group in a bad position. If you had been part of our group. We could ask for up to half of the valuables pulled by our people from your part of the battle. Those valuables, we can have used buy supplies for the group as a whole." Al was playing with the money belt, shifting it up and down like a yo-yo in his left hand. "We already put the weapons and ammunition from the Number One, in with the rest of the stuff we picked up. But we can dig it out if you want it, or give you something like it later."

Al was thinking that his was a lot harder, than he had first thought it would be. He was looking down towards the ground at her feet, and then just as quickly looked back up to her face. He did not want to screw her over, but he also knew the state of his combat unit compared to the rest of the units fighting the cylons. "But what I like to know? Are you going back to the camp, or are you staying out here with us. You took out a cylon, so you have some fight in you. That's rarer than you might think. We could always us another fighter are just a person who wants to fight, in our group. If that is not your game of tryad. Then there are some jobs back at the support base, or even the Settlement. That is if you have the skills. You could start an almost completely new life, if you wanted to." Al was messing it up, and he knew it. He had never been good at talking to civilians, or kids for that matter. He was good at killing people and braking things, just not talking to people. Besides she was very pretty, even under the wet hair and a dirty face. He gave it one last shot, to save the situation, or he was going to have to call Stacy over to try to bail him out. "What I'm doing a bad job of saying, is that you have some options open to you. But you don't have much time to make up your mind. Frist I need to know if you're going back into New Caprica or not." Well, let's see where that goes? Then I can see what I have to work with and workout how to keep her in our group.

Al could see that when he brought up going back to New Caprica the last time, that she shuttered. But to her credit, she had kept it together and by the second time those words were said. She did not flinch a millimeter. She was ready to give a reply to the question that she had been asked twice now. "I want to kill cylons. Not kill them, so that they can come back. But I want to end them forever. Is it true that the people from the 13th have weapons that can do that?" Crow was hoping that for once a rumor would turn out to be close to the truth. There was a first time for everything, after all.

Al smiled a big grin, which had a few to many more teeth showing to be called truly friendly. "From what we have been able to find out." He held up his hand to stop her from talking. "We have good sources in fact. They are very good, and they are telling us and I believe them. That most of the weapons these newcomer have put into the field, seem to stop the cylons from downloading into new bodies. So yes they die, if a machine can die that is." Al was betting by the tone Crow had used, this news was the key to her staying with them. "This is yours, no matter if you stay or go." He did not want to give up the money belt, but it was the right thing to do. He knew that if they kept the money any longer, than they had to. It would get out sometime in the future, and then no one would trust them again. So he passed her the full belt of high value metal. That did not mean that his fingers did not linger on the belt, a little long than he needed to.

Crow took the offered belt and unzipped it without thinking twice about the actions. Of all the things that might have been in the belt, she never would have guessed what was actually in it. Now ti was her street wise instincts that betrayed her. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as she saw all forty of the gold and silver color cubit bars in the now opened money belt. She counted each of the different colored rectangles twice, before she looked back up at Al with a very quizzical look. To no one's surprise, she used a questioning tone. "Is this for real?"

Al was still smiling at the young woman. But it had turned to a more fatherly looking one than the one that had been on his face a few minutes before. "More than you know, Crow." He pointed at the silver bars. "These aren't made of silver bullion, but Platinum and four nines pure at that." He was watching the girl, and she only twitched an eyebrow at what Al had said. She had no idea what he was talking about, and after she did not say anything about the Platinum bars in her hands. Al started to fill a few of the blank spots in her knowledge base in very low tones.

"It's about three times the value by weight, than even gold." He was rewarded with the young girl sucking in a large lung full of air, threw her clenched teeth. Al pitched his voice a little lower, in case anyone might be trying to pick up on what was being said. "I would suggest you let Stacy give you a receipt from them, and let her take care of it for you. She has a very good lock box, which she has brought with us packed down somewhere. She will turn it and the belt back over to you, when you get back to the support base that has been set up for combat teams. You look like a street smart kid, so yes the receipt is legal tender for the Earthers. If Stacy or Jason do not give you your cubits back to you? Then, well you can take it straight to leaders over them. They are kind of like our Quorum, but all of them are like Adama with a tooth ache, for enforcing their laws. Or you can keep them, and don't sleep for the next few days or weeks. Only because you're worried someone is going to take from you, in the night. It's up to you. If you don't believe me ask around. Everyone will tell you the same thing, at least the ones that have a working knowledge of Caprican."

Crow was fast and smart, almost as smart as she thought she was. She had tested and had almost made it into the short Viper school program. That had been set up to replenish their depleted ranks. She had only been sixteen at the time and they had not given her a slot. Then when they had found this mud ball. They had stopped the training school, and she had to find other ways to make a living. She was good at evaluating any situation, but she needed to buy some time to let her mind work on the issue that was so far out of her normal life experiences. So she changed the subject at random, to give her that time to think. "You know that if this wood does not get cut. It is going to put a lot of people in a bad way, without any heat back in the camp. And with the way you took the cylons out today. They will not want to send anymore out for a long time to come, if ever. It's not like they going to let us out here again, without having some kind of huge escort or a lot more eyes on us. That is, if only to stop us from running away from them."

This made Al jerked up his head. He had been caught completely flat footed, with her counter question, and statement. He knew how much the results from wood cutting detail meant to the average Colonial. But he had not thought about, what would happened after if this attack had proved successful. "Frak. I did not think of that, when I told Jason about this." Al looked round the girl and then over one shoulder. "Do you mind if we talk later, Crow?" He was already turning while Crow was waving, and smiling at him. She now had the time to check some things out on her own.

Al was almost running to get back to Jason, who saw him coming with a very concerned looking face. After only about five minutes of talking, a plan was put together. The work detail, at least the only ones who had not seen these new comers' weapons up close. It was hard to notice the firepower when you are barring your face into cold wet mud. Now they could only watch as stunned inhuman trees, when the massive forest titans fell one after the other. Jason and Al had grabbed a pair of short Vibro swords, and made quick work of dropping half a dozen trees in less time it took to pee in the woods. The hardest work for the detail, was using mostly hand tools to drop the trees, while the few small power tools bucked the down trees of any remaining limbs.

The pair would have gone farther and chopped the fallen trees into smaller logs, but they were already short on time. And they knew at least one human form cylon would be able to download with word about the attack on his lips. It also would be able to report that they had not started working before the attack had taken them out. When Jason dropped the final tree, he checked his internal clock and frowned at the read out. This was taking too long, but they were not ready just yet, to pull out of the ambush site. Jason had a feeling that he was pushing his luck, but he was going to push it just a little farther anyway. He felt that he had no choice but to do so.

"People! We will be pulling out in Nine minutes. Let's get a head count done, people. But don't forget to keep an eye out for any visitors." Jason did not have normally use a loud voice, but he could project one when it needed to be done. Just like he needed to do right now. He had his own final checks to do, before he was ready to pull out. He had to fallow certain rules that Major Weston had put out weeks ago, before they could leave this battle site.

This started a final mad rush around the sites by all of Jason's unit. The four human guards were placed into position on the ground, and then give a shot in the neck by one of Jason's few First Aid trained troopers. That shot would knock them out for at least a dozen hours, and maybe a few hours longer for some of the smaller ones. They would be safe leaving them out in the open and on the dirt. There were no predatory land animals on this planet. Well that is unless you counted cylons, and humans in that category. This would also give those four a believable alibi, when the cylon response finally showed up. It was a risk, but the four guards were all willing to accept it. Saul had warned all of them in person, what the risk would be. When they had first signed up to be the "Cylon helpers or Baltar's Bastard".

The first group of civilians was moving out of the clearing begin lead by four of Jason's group best scouts. They would be taken to a hide location, which Jason's people had already set up for a few days before the ambush. They would rest up and keep a low profile, before moving farther down the chain of support to a support base. So far it looked like all of the detail personnel were going to be pulling out with Jason's people. That was good news for Jason and his group. They would get a little bounce for each of the Colonials, that he help get out from under the cylons thumb. It was not much but, every little bit help the bottom line. At least when you were taking care of a combat unit, during a time of war While he was scanning the area, he caught a glimpse of the now very rich Colonial girl talking with one of the Colonials that had been with his team for a while now. He had been with Jason a bit longer, than Al had been with him. But he did not have the language skills that Al had brought to the unit. He just was happy killing cylons, and not being in a leadership role of any kind. He only had to be told what to do and point in the right direction, and off he would go like a living machine. Jason thought that it was a good sign seeing her, talking to him.

Crow had found a person she knew a little better than just in passing, from the same ship she had been on. To her surprise he was now in the group of Colonials that were working with the Earthers. She was having a hard time thinking in that term, and not the 13th Tribe. But that was the way that they preferred to be considered, so she would do her best to think of them that way also. If something like that keep her out of trouble, then she thought that it was worth the effort to try.

Dal saw the young woman coming towards him threw a mixed crowd, it did not take long for him to remember her. He stopped cleaning his weapon, and rose to give her a hug. "Good to see you Crow." He tilted his head a little more than he need to. This was to let her know, that he saw what was on her shoulder. And it was defiantly not a purse of any kind. "Did not know you knew how to shoot, or is that thing just for show?" The tone was light, but it did not hide the question, he would like her to answer.

Crow subconsciously touched the butt of the military rifle, slung over her right shoulder with her right palm. "I learned back home how to shoot, when I was a kid from my Papa. These things are not that much harder to shoot, than his old hunting rifle." Elias did not want to think about her lost family anymore, and changed the subject. "So what is the deal with these Earthers? I helped take out one of the human looking Frakers. And now they told me, that I can keep all of its stuff if I want but, I should let them give me a receipt and turn it over to them for safe keeping. They said its legal, and I can go to their Quorum. If they don't give me, my stuff back. It's some kind of game, right?" She was looking a Dal. He had been nice to her, and had even had covered her back when she got into trouble. He was about the only male, that she would say that she trusted in any kind of way. She did trust completely, that she could tell when he was lying to her.

Dal raised an eyebrow, at the woman-child standing before him with a combat rifle over one shoulder. His mind was working quickly, on what had been said and combined that with his experience working with this group. "They must have pulled something really good of that body" thought Dal. Dal made sure to keep eye contact with Crow, but not seem like he as a threat to her. "That would be Stacy. She's good people. I let you know, that if they don't give you your stuff back. Yes, you can take the receipt to the other Earthers in leadership positions. They will take care of it for you." He gave the girl a slight smile, which did not show any teeth. "Jason, Al and Stacy will not like what the other Earthers would do to them, if something like that happened. I want to take a little advice from me, if you will. The Earthers do not put up with theft, and that is what they would call it. If they did not returning your stuff to you, when you asked for it." Dal stopped taking and still maintained eye contact, then pushed her by connect the dots for her. "You heard what Admiral Adama did to those two Ha'la'tha gangsters awhile back? They aren't that bad, but they are a very close second to that event."

"Well that settles it" she thought. As she was trying hard not to pat the money belt under her cloths, but it was very hard to keep her hand still. But she still had more questions, a lot more questions that needed to be asked. And some of them, she was sure she did not want to know the answers to. She was looking at the strange second hand looking clothes. She knew, somehow, that his clothes were not Colonial made. Then she looked at the Colonial weapon, he had been cleaning on his lap when she walked up to him. "Why do you have worn out cloths and Colonial weapons? Why don't you have one of those Direct Energy Weapons and body armor like the rest of those Earthers do?" She first pointed at the homemade body armor, and then the Colonial rifle on his lap, and pistol on his right hip in its holster. She then pointed a thumb over her right shoulder in the general direction of a group that where not Colonial born. She had already noticed the differences with this one group, and she was concerned that Colonials might be looked down on by the Earthers.

Dal shrugged his shoulders slightly, and wiped some excess oil off of his rifle. He knew that Crow was a very sharp girl, and she had asked equally sharp questions. He was wondering if she would understand how the world worked now, or not. "Money for one. The Earthers are somehow stranded here on this planet. So they only have some much stuff, and they will not get any more, and they can't make more with the machines they can put together. So you need money to buy the good stuff. If you join or allow yourself to fall under their military command? Then you can get better weapons, and body armor issued to you. Just like the Colonial Military would do. Down side is that you have to fallow there orders, and it's a fraking pain to get out it."

Dal did a circle in the air above his head. "If you join a nonmilitary group, you can come and leave as you please. You can also take a mission, or sit them out. It is all up to you. This group buys what they can, but they want everyone to have good body armor first, well second after food. When everyone has some. It will all be better than what any Colonial marine has ever been able to wear. Then they say, that they will try to buy some better weapons to replace the Colonial made ones." He patted his homemade body armor that kind of looked like a cheap plastic animal skin of a rain jacket. "Now, how about a second piece of advice. Don't under estimate anything about the Earthers. This might look like crap, and second hand clothes to you. But it's both lighter, and stronger than anything a Colonial Marine Boarding team would have been able to use. I have taken hits from those big hand carried cannon weapons some of the Centurions carry, as well as a High Explosive round from a Colonial rifle at point blank range." He rubbed his chest without thinking about it, as flashback rocked his world. "I won't tell you that it did not hurt like Frak. But I am alive, still kicking, and talking about it." He had a cocky little grin now. "I will say, that I was able to shoot back. And I knock down both of those Frakers that shot me."

Crow's mind was blazing threw all of the new information she was picking up. She was trying to see all the angles, that someone might us to screw her over. The first one she hit on, she asked about it as soon as it popped in her head. "So, how do you get paid?" That seemed like a good, but also safe question to ask.

Dal now let the grin on his face, become a little slyer. "So you're thinking about joining our little band of outlaws. And you want to know all of the ins and outs, before you jump one way or the other. Good for you. I always knew you were a lot smarter, than you let people think you were." He unzipped the outer layer of his body armor like animal skin, and pulled out a single sheet of paper. The paper looked strange to her eyes because the corners were not cut off, like proper paper did. Dal passed it to her with a smooth grace. One side was written in some kind of text she could not understand, but the other side was in Caprican. As she started to read Dal kept talking. "This should explain everything a lot better than I could. As for getting paid goes." He was not smiling now, but shrugged his shoulders slightly, his lips turned down, and his eyes grew cold. "I don't really much care. When I joined up, they gave me this armor, a weapon, ammunition, food, medical care, and a safe place to sleep. On top of that they let me kill cylons, whenever we find them. That is really all that matters right now, at least to me." The smile was back, but it was not friendly and Crow almost took a step or two back away from her "friend". Dal kept talking oblivious to her discomfort, as he repeated himself. "They help me kill cylons, and that is all I care about for right now. Now sometimes they will pass a chit out to everyone, when were back at one of the bases. Or if you done something above and beyond, it would be a reward type of thing. I could give a Frak less. The food, now that is a different story. We get dried fruit, and fresh fruit when we're near one of the Earthers support bases." He gave out a slightly crazy laugh. "Frak, I even get thick slices meat for every meal."

Crow's eyes shot open so fast, that she could not stop them from doing it. She had not had real meat in what seemed like forever, and to have some for every meal. Well, that was almost enough to get her to sign her soul away to the gods for something like that. "So I have to give up half of everything to them?" The tone has shifted somewhat, and Dal picked up on it right away.

Dal had a shocked exertion on his face then it settled back down, but his mouth was in a straight tight lipped line. Like that time she had told him about a gang of boys, which had attacked her in one of the ships corridors. He that same look, when he went looking for them, he even had the same tone of voice when he asked her questions. "Who the Frak told you that? No you don't. They will ask you, if you find something good. If you would kick in up to half the trade value to the group's general fund, but you don't have to kick in a tenth cubit. I won't tell you that you will get some looks if you don't kick in something, but you don't have to." He had an idea what her next question was going to be, but he saw Jason and Al coming out of the woods out of the corner of one eye. He suspected that they all were going to be moving away from this battlefield very soon. "Look Crow. You're lucked into meeting this group. They are good people. And let me tell you, there are some bad ones out there, if don't watch yourself. You can come and go as you please, and if you get into most of the kinds of trouble you're known for. They well help, as long as you are not breaking their laws. Frak I even know a few crazy Frakers that are killing cylons on their own, out in the woods. It's up to you Crow." Dal looked up when he heard the call to finish up, and to get ready to leave. He looked into the eyes of the girl in front of him. "I hope you stick with us, but it's up to you. I got to get ready. We are about to pull out." He stopped talking for a second, and did the head tilt thing again. "Why don't you stick close to me for the next few days, if you're not sure?" The old smile was back on his face, and it even reached his eyes. "It would almost be like old times again."

Crow watched the man as he walked away. She already knew what she wanted to do, talking to Dal had only reinforced to her that it was the right choice. She had already started down that path, when no one had tried to take her captured Colonial rifle from her. Now all she had to do, was see if she could pull it off. It did not take more than a few seconds, of looking to find Al. He was talking to the Earther female. The one she had been told, was called Stacy and she was there supply officer.

Al stopped talking when he noticed the girl walking towards him, with determined steps and her chin held high. She had a set expression on her face, almost like a Viper pilot tracking a Raider with weapons hot. When she was about ten paces away from him, she pulled the money belt out from under her coat with a smooth motion of her hands. What happened next, he had not expected. And it would have never made it onto any betting pool chart, ever thought of. He had hoped she would turn the items over to be locked up, but he thought she might need a few sleepless nights. Before she came to her senses. He did not expect to hear the words that came out of her mouth, as she closed the last few steps toward him.

Crow was unzipping the money belt, with a smooth motion without looking at what she was doing. "I want to join your group for now. You said that if someone in the group had taken down something of special value. That you would ask for up to half of the value. That money would be used to buy things for the group. Are you asking me now?" She did not know if they would take her on as a fighter, but if she acted like she was already to be a part of them. Then she was thinking that, it would be harder for them to say no to her. At least that is how she was playing it out, in her head. If they did not take her on as a fighter, than she would take her items, and find someone one that would. She had a weapon, funds to go along with her will to fight. That should be enough to carry her for a while down the road she was setting her feet to.

Stacy had only been about five feet away from Al when the young woman with the money belt walled up on him. She was trying to fallow along with what was being said. But the rapid fire Colonial words, was beyond her limited language skills. She just waited, to see what was going to happen next. She had to be quite and also still. These were two things that she was not exactly known for being able to do, for any miserable length of time.

Al looked at her, and then down at the belt in her hands. He made eye contact with Stacy, and then looked back at Crow. "Yes as a member of the leadership of this group. I am asking that you donate up to half of your win fall, to the general funds of the group. It will be used to buy needed items for this group, so that we all can fight the cylons better. You do not have to do this, but it will help in the fight against the cylons. It also might save the lives of the other members of the group, if they have better weapons, armor, or other things."

Crow nodded her head up and down slowly. "Fine. I killed that cylon Fraker. But I could not have done it, if your group had not started the attack. I will let you take half of the value of those cubits, and hold the rest till we get to a safer place." Crow's chin went even high, and fire lit her eyes. "I want to fight cylons. I will stay, if you let me kill them. Where can I get a better weapon, and some decent body armor?"

Al could barely breathe, and then started with the easiest part of this little dance. "Crow. If you want to kill cylons, you're just the type of person we were looking for. After we get away from here. We will work on that, and were you will fit in best with our little group."

Stacy watched was the girl or young woman pulled out first of ten of the gold bar shaped cubits and ten of the silver color ones. Then she passed them one at time over to Al, who still had a poleaxed look on his face as the pile grew in his hands. Twenty ounces metal should not have weighed that much, but soon it took both of Al's hands to hold them. While she put more and more bars into his hands, until it held all twenty of the odd shaped items were in his hands. He turned, so that he could hand off the items to Stacy, before his heart stopped. He had never seen this much physical money in one place in his whole life. He had written checks and digital transactions for his employer, before the cylons had come equal to the amount of cubits in his hands. Somehow this was different to have real value in his hands.

Now that Al was turned to one side, he let Stacy know what they had been talking about. "Stacy, Crow would like to donate half of her win fall to the general group fund. This is being done in accordance to the rules, as being a member of our group." He said it first in English, and then a second time in Caprican. Before he passed all of the twenty cubit bars. They were ten of each color to her, for her to deal with.

Stacy looked at Crow and said in passable Caprican "Thank you Crow. I will put it to good use, for the good of our group. Make sure you get me your clothes sizes from boots to hat as soon as you can. If you have any questions, please look for me or anyone you might already know in our group."

Crow was not smiling as Al passed the bars over to the older woman. Who would be able to smile at a time like this? When they had just given away more money in a second, than they would have made in three lifetimes? She did nod her head to show that she understood what the other woman had said to her. Crow pulled out all two of the gold colored bars, and one of the silver colored ones out of the money belt. Then she zipped the belt back up, and held the money belt out to the older women. In clear and steadily as she could she asked for something, she never would have thought to do before an hour ago. "Receipt please."

Stacy looked first at Al then back at the young woman in some visible shock. "You need to keep that, till we get back to our first stop. Then we will take it from there, and give you an itemized receipt for you. If something happens to me on the way, I don't want you lose everything you just won. That would not be fair for anyone. Besides I did not bring the strong box out on an ambush. We have never needed it before." She pushed the money belt back to the younger woman.

Crow had not thought about that, after making up her mind to pass these cubits over. That they would tell her, something like she would have to wait. How would she be able to protect herself, and her new found wealth when others found out about it? She had no doubt that someone would find out about it, and they would try to take it from her. From her point of view, that was just the way the universe worded. The strong took what they wanted from the weak, and she did not even have any ammunition for the fraking rifle she still was carrying on her shoulder. She had used up every last round on that Fraking cylon, to reinforce that she was not interested in him. No had not worked, but hot lead might have gotten the point across to him. "I should have kept a few bullets, instead of just blowing through the magazine." Elias thought to herself, but careful not to let it show on his face. "Maybe I can find someone like Dal to lend me some." She was trying to work things out in her mind, but there were too many unknowns for her to come up with anything concert. She almost did not notice when Stacy dropped the rucksack she had been carrying from her back into the mud at her feet. It was the movement that brought Crow back to the world moving around her.

Stacy was rummaging through the pack on the ground with both of her hands. She had to pass all of those bars back to Al, so that she could do something with them. She had not been prepared for anything like what had just happened. Frist she pulled out a thick folder that had a zipper on one end. When she had it open, Al passed her the cubits. Stacy counted each out by type, and id number that was stamped on each of the bar/coins. It was a steady pace, until his hands were empty again. After closing the zipper folder again, and replacing it into the correct location in her rucksack. She pulled out two more items from her rucksack. She made sure to make eye contact with Al first. "Crow, you might need these. You're a member of the team now. If you need anything let Al or one of the others know, and we will see what we can do." She handed the two full loaded magazines, which would fit the younger woman's weapon from her knelling position to the standing young woman. Stacy had been able to say the complete statements, in passable Caprican. Only because she had said those same words so many times by now. That she had been able to memorize the phrases, by simple rote experience. It was only one of about half a dozen statements that she could do that with.

Crow took the two loaded magazine and nodded to the women, still kneeling by her rucksack in the damp earth. She had no idea what to say, or do. So she just went turned and went to find Dal. She did not want to be counted in the wrong group, when it came time to separate the sheep from the goats. Even with her limited experience. She knew that, would have to happen sooner or later. When the group was getting ready to leave she still had not found him, and was starting to get worried. She was just started looking around to find another face that she might have seen before. That was when she saw Dal and Al heading her way. They were not running, but they were walking in the ground eating pace of people short on time. Crow altered her course, and quickly help close the distance between her the two men.

Al spoke first when he was only a few steps from her. "Crow, I think you know Dal from before. But you will be working with his team, for now. Stick with him, and he will keep an eye out for you until we can get you settled in. Do as he says, and keep an eye on him. He has done this sort of thing before for us. When we get back to one of the support bases, we can all sit down over a nice hot meal and workout where you might best fit in to our little band of happy campers. If you don't or can't fallow orders, then we will ask you to leave. We will talk about what you think about our little group other rules in more detail then. Dal will give them to you on the way, so that you have some time to think about them beforehand. Questions, comments, concerns at this time, No? It might be a few days to get this all worked out. We want to take out time, to make sure you're a good fit."

When Crow nodded that she understood. Al just waved and walked away, giving orders to others as he went by little groups of people. Some orders were in Caprican, and others were in a language she did not understand. Crow looked at Dal and cocked her head to one side. "So where are we going? And how do I reload this Fraking thing? I could work out were the safety, the trigger, and the sights, but that was about it." She pulled the weapon off of her back, and held one loaded magazine in the other hand. The looked she had on her face only held a little bit of confusion on it.

Dal took the weapon out of her hands and pulled a magazine out of a pocket out of one of the side of his body armor. He quickly showed her how to drop the spent magazine, and put a new one in correctly. This did not take long, and he used a few extra minutes to show her a few other quick pointers. "Make sure you keep you empty magazines, or any you might see lying around a battle site. This is not like the shows you might have seen back home. Out here they are in short supply, and each cost money to replace or repair. Don't waste your money and buy your own out of your own pocket, let Stacy do that." Dal made an odd face. "I did that once, and I think it was from a bad batch or something. But it could have be that some of them were not Colonial made. And the cylons skimped on the quality control to get the number of magazines in the supply system up. So you might have to drop the magazines out of your little friend, before its empty and replace it with a fresh one. If it jams up on you that is what you do. Don't think about it, just do it." He waved his finger at her, like a father to an errant child. "Even if you know it's broken, don't drop them and leave them behind. That is a big fraking no, no girl." Dal was always watching Crow as he was talking. This was a lot different situation than he thought that she was used to.

Crow took the weapon back, and repeated the loading and unloading motions a few times. She took some more direction from Dal on how to use the weapon, and it's built in systems. This only took a few minutes to do this, because she could not test fire the thing. And get a real feel for the new tricks she had just been shown. Right then it was not that big of an issue for Dal or anyone else in the group of fighters. She had proven that she could hit a moving man sized target, with that weapon already today. That alone was enough for most of Jason's group to accept her having a loaded weapon of her own. Besides she had brought it with her out of the woods, and by the Earther's laws it was hers.

Dal nodded and when she stopped the action, and went into and out of a hunter pose. He smiled at her with a fatherly smile. "Now my new young friend, we have some work to do to earn our meal tonight. You will be helping me heard and protect these four unarmed civilians. Until we get back to the main base camp some miles away. For now though, we are going to a hiding spot that is a bit of a walk from here. And before you ask. No we will not be catching a ride on one of the transports, which your group was so kind to bring out to us." He gave a slightly evil laugh. "No one but the drivers, and one armed escort will be on each of the three trucks that we will be taking with us. That way if we lose them, we won't lose too many people at the same time. It will Fraking suck to lose the prize and salvage money, but we can always get more of that. Finding any more good people? Well now, that is kind of hard to do." He did not have to add that it was hard to find any more humans, because of the cylons. That was just a given.

The six of them separated from the rest of the group, and went deep in the woods to find their assigned spot of hide out for the next few hours. In a matter of minutes after Crow and Dal's group had left the ambush site. The whole area was empty of any movement, except say the wind blowing slowly threw the tree tops. It stayed that way for over an hour. It was not common for the wood cutting detail to not contact base that often. But it had hard times, that it must make contact with main base of operation. It would seem that the human forms that had been acting as escorts had not gotten a message out after all. The Number One that Crow had shot down had been so new that he had not picked up the right type of coms device. He had only picked up one that the local detail would receive any messages it might send out. Then the Number One had a delay while ever line of his code was checked out, before it was allowed into a new body. All this took time, to do.

When the detail had not made contact at the appointed time, and had not responded to repeated attempts to contact them by the Number Two on duty. When they were already half an hour overdue. That was when a pair of Raiders made a low flying pass, over of the area that the wood cutting detail should have been. The low flying Raider transmitted live images of the clearing and the sprawled out bodies of the human police guards on display in the center of the clearing. Those images did not only go back to the building on planet, but to one of the orbiting Basestars as it was ordered to do. John was not happy when he was contacted, and informed of the situation from the operation center. Now reviewing the data in person, he was not any happier as he reviewed the images. It had been so long since the last cylon had downloaded, that he did not even check if one had. Now if a cylon downloaded it was a complete shock to the crew running that equipment. The Number One that Crow had killed was just lucky that it was a completely automated process if time consuming.

It had been on John's order, to conduct a second more detailed fly over of the area. And while he was waiting for it to report to come back, he used what he had learned to not just wait but to plan. He had already issued the orders to prepare the Quick Reaction Unit. And it was about to leave to check out the area when the second Raider report back in. The more detailed information led the human form to believe that it did look like an attack was still in progress. John on a whim confirmed the order to launch, and they left the nearest Basestar.

When the Centurions and their supporting Heavy Raiders of the QRU made it to the scene of the attack, it was not long after the last over flight. They deployed off the heavier craft ready for combat from any directions as they flowed out of the small craft like a flood of deadly metal. The only thing they found however were the four human "police", and the stripped bodies of the human form cylons on the ground. While they were moving around the area looking for any attackers, the one cylon that had been shot in the back by Crow had succeeded in completing downloading. It went into a new body successfully. It made his report first to his line, and then to the rest of the human forms about what had happened to him and the rest of the detail. At least as it remembered the events, and the other Ones agreed on how it was to be told to the larger group of human forms.

That second "real" report came down just in time to stop John from killing the human guards that had been on the woodcutting detail, and left tied up. That report proved that the human Police had not been involved in the attack against the cylons. But had been left unharmed, because they were simply human. It was assumed that they had been left behind when the rest of the human crewed word detail had disappeared, was because they had been working with the cylons. This added more fuel to the fire. That the cylons should leave the humans and this fraked up planet, behind as fast as the Basestars could move. This also did not make John happy, and he was determined to take it out on someone, or any one he could. When you added in the loss of the trucks, along with the armored VIP transport. All of which had been brought out to the end of a very long supply line, with the missing Centurions? This left John wishing he could vent somehow on the humans that were left in the camp under his thumb.

While John was handling that situation on the ground, and the massive amount of complaining coming from the other lines. He was "told" to bring back the one remaining cargo truck. What had almost made him lose his mind, besides being ordered to do something? Was that he had been told, to make sure it had a maximum load of wood in the back of the six wheeled cargo truck. When he sent it back to the human camp for offloading. That was how the cylons started to do work, to support the human's quality of life, again.

John would have repeated flashbacks for weeks of Centurions cutting and loading wood, which the human detail should have done, had they not gone missing. He even had to have half of his walking Centurions from the QRU carrying arm loads of wood back to the human camp. This was so that they would not have to make another run over the next few days. Just to get the wood the camp needed to live on this cool planet. On top of all that, John knew that the Colonials saw the cylons driving the cargo truck back to the camp. Along with the walking Centurions, who were carrying the arm loads of wood that the humans needed. He knew more than one of those human watchers would remember when cylons were their slaves, and did the biding of their human masters.

That had all been before the 1st Cylon war had started. John was not very happy, and it was getting worse the longer he could do nothing about what was driving his anger. When he went to look for something, and someone else to make him happy. It had turned out that it did not help his mood. He found that she and Saul, had moved out to their old shack during the day, and he had not noticed this little event happening. He started looking for them, but he ran out of time before curfew for the humans had started. He was short ground Centurion not currently on missions, until he could get some more sent down planet side. So his searching would have to wait till the next day to find Ellen Tigh and her husband. That is if nothing else went wrong on the god forsaken planet, between sundown and sunup.

###############

After Saul had taken care of starting his planning for the end of the cylon occupation, he pulled as many strings as he could and called in every favor ever owed to him. The hatch to the basement was fixed, so that it would not open from the top ever again. It would just look like any other part of the floor, under even very detailed inspection. The secondary access point to the tunnel, in another shack would now be the primary entrance and exit for the tunnel. The old entrance would be back filled and blocked, so that even if any intruders knew were the old access point in the floor had been. They would have to dig down and sideways, to regain access to the basement and tunnel. It would take a lot of effort and equipment to do this fast, even for cylons.

It was going to take a lot of work and man power, to get this all done. But it was that, or risk losing the only tunnel out of the cylon controlled camp. That was not likely to happen in the time, that they hope was left of cylon occupation. Saul was a military man, and for all his other faults. He knew how to make a Plan B or even up to a Plan K. All Saul had to do was issues a few orders, and a certain group of his people would fallow the direction he had mapped out for them already.

Saul and Laura had worked some quite deals, and after some shuffling around of some people who might not have volunteered. Saul and his wife were being moving into a cabin in the middle of one of the grounded Pan Galactic liners. That liner was almost in the perfect center of the field that had been turned into a refugee camp. The new living area was a lot smaller than the shack that the pair had left, with only what they could carry. But it would be hardened for anything to happen to them, without it being seen by sixty or more people. And one or more of those people, would be reporting it to a lot of others. His last act as the resistance military leader was to have a message passed to their contact near Baltar, in Colonial One. He was to get the codes to unlock the Jump engines, for all of the Colonial ships on the planet. If things went sideways, and fell apart in the worst ways they had thought of? Then at least they would be able to leave this system, and scatter to flee any pursuing cylons. It was always good to have a Plan F. This one was called, Plan "We are so Fraked". It was just too bad that Plan F, was also looking like "Kill as many cylons as possible, till all of the human fighters on the planet had died in place".

With Saul now out of the picture, hiding from the human form cylon named John with his wife. Laura would be appointing a new leader of the resistance for military operations. When she had time she would appoint a temporary replacement for Saul. That was a task both of them were not looking forward to doing. They were passing the odd coded notes back in forth, for now. If she was lucky. It would only be a temporary command of the military parts of the resistance, she would have to hold together or Saul's replacement would be doing that job. If things worked out any were close, to how they were planned out. Saul would soon be come out of hiding, and take back over military operation on the ground at least.

##########

A few days after Jason and his group had even pulled out of the wood cutting area, the leadership of the Settlement was on a conference call to deep space. It was with the leader of the only two space warships, which were under control of the humans that any of them knew about. They were working on the last bit of a very detailed and complex plan. Which later ether people would say that they were brilliant, or dumb as fraking rocks? It was however, the only thing they had to work with. Desperation is the mother of inventions, or the final refuge of the crazy.

Captain Kelly was getting tired it had been a long day for him already. And they seemed to him that they were just rehashing the same issue, over and over again and getting nowhere with it. He looked around the metal walled briefing room, and the other people in the room were looking like they felt the same way as he was feeling. He took it as his job, to bring it up to the others in this planning session. "Look Admiral Adama. Can your two warships take on and win against three of the cylon Basestars or not?" Kelly was rubbing his head with one hand, and looked to his left and right with blood shot eyes. The others in this room were looking at him with a mix of surprise and grateful looks, at what he had just said to the device that would transmit his words across this star system.

From the sound of the voice that comes through the device sitting in the center of the desk. It sounded like the older Adama, was also on edge of his last nerve with how this meeting had been going for a few hours now. "Captain Kelly as I told you before. It's not just the Basestars we have to deal with. It's all of the Raiders, Heavy Raiders, and the ton of ground base Centurions they are carrying. That we will have to deal with, on top of the three capital ships. If we were just talking about those three cylon Basestars, then yes we could do it. No major problem, besides the normal uncertainties that can happen in any battle. If they only had half of the Raiders and Heavy Raiders to launch against us, then again yes. Even if they had most of the Raiders available to launch against us, we could still win. But we do not have enough weapons to take on all of the cylons at once. That is with an even chance of us surviving the battle with them. We just don't have the firepower or numbers to win decisively, and without taking very heavy losses in both ground and space operations. Losses, which would leave us defenseless against any enemies in the future."

Kelly was now rubbing his temples with both hands. He had just decided that, this was worse than working with the Coalition State with a tooth ache. Kelly tried to keep his voice calm and level, even though he wanted to reach into the Colonial made device. And choke the person on the other end with his bare hands. "Admiral we know that they will be shifting very thing they can, when the fourth ship leaves. All of it will be going over to the three ships that are staying behind, because we have been taken them down to that low in deployable numbers." Kelly had not said that they had been able to do that without any warships in support. "How about looking at this way for a second, if you would Admiral? What if we change the dynamics you are used to fighting? Anything that the cylons have on the ground is going to be looking at my people and your people, which are also on the ground. The ones that have been taking them out. And will not be going at you, at least not in the early stages of the space part of the battle. I would bet if you attack them in orbit, after we start attacking them on the ground. Then they are going to be shifting assets toward us, and not be able to send most of them towards you. We have been taking out cylons, even air targets. All the way up to 4000 feet or so, of ground level without that much of an issue. If you take the high ground for us, we might be able to even the odds on the ground side of things. Would something like that be helpful in your planning?" He almost had said, "When you run your numbers" to the military man. That would have been tactless and border on rude. To tell another commander, that all he cared about were the win/loss column could have been taken badly.

For a few what seemed like hours, the device was quit on both ends of the conversation. It was quite long enough for eye to start to turn to Kelly. They all were wondering if even that little push had been enough to offend the Colonial space Admiral. Kelly was just about to say something again, and was already working up an apology in his mind. Then the crackle of a voice came back over the hand built device.

"Captain Kelly, are you telling me? That you think you and your people, can take on three Regiments of Centurions. That as well as any air support from Raiders and Heavy Raiders, which they might have in local space?" Adama was finding it hard to believe, what he was being told by people he had never met face to face before. He did not want to insult them, but he wanted to make sure that they understood the magnitude of they were saying. He had reviewed all the reports coming in about the combat, which had been going on ground side. But he still was having a hard time believing that that a population of less than seven thousand people and an even smaller military, said they could do. No matter how high tech they seemed to be. They should not be able to do that what he had read about. Now he was being told in a major planning mission, not some short of a hidden camera shows. That they truly believed what they were selling or shoveling.

Now that same small group of fighters, and now support with a growing number of Colonials. Now said that they could, not only take on three cylons assault Regiments, and could not only hold their own against them. They were saying that they could win against them. Bill Adama had seen whole Colonial Marine Regiments and Brigades wiped out to the last person, by a smaller sized cylon unit. And this had happened repeatedly, both during the first cylon war and this new war. But what if what they were saying, was true? Then it would give his plan a better chance of succeeding. As they had said more than once, they had the guts and more importantly they had the weapons to do it. He just did not know if he had the faith, that they could do all of what they said they could do. Now if they could delay, even some of the cylon small craft. At least until, he and the Pegasus took out the three Basestars in the solar system. Well that would be a big help in evening the odds. The ground combat would still be ugly, and cost a lot of blood. Then again, they already had taken out almost a full Basestars worth of Centurions. They had done this all in small to medium sized attacks to date. That was something that most Colonial military units could not claim to have done. That is, if there information was right and they were acting like Viper jocks and inflating their kill numbers.

Kelly was about to snap off a witty reply. And in one of the rare times, in years. He did not trust his mouth from going too far if he let it open. So he only said one word, and he tried to keep it in a positive tone, without any of his exasperation coming through. He was only partially successful. "Yes!" But the tone he used carried over the device, all the way to the very end of this solar system. Both Max and Bob cringed when they heard tone.

Then in the back ground something changed from the back and forth between the Settlement and the Admiral. The operator that was in the cylon control Refugee camp, jumped in on the conversation without an invitation to do so. "They have been doing it with four Basestars in orbit, alone so far. So why can't they do it for a little longer?"

The voice was faint, like they did not know they were actively transmitting to everyone much less the power players on line today. Kelly hoped that it would be good enough, to keep his people form coming down on the person. Which had blurted that statement out for everyone to hear. He had wanted to say the same thing for a while now, but he had not wanted to poison the well so to speak. With someone, who also just happened to command a pair of two million ton space base warships and a bucket full of supporting ships. That also could be the Earthers only way home and off this lonely planet. Or he could blow them all away from high orbit.

They could hear the other man, the Admiral, let out a sigh that carried the tone of a very tired man. "Okay we try it your way. We will take out all of the Basestars in orbit, and you will handle the ground war. I don't want you all to think, I don't trust you. But if you get in over your heads, please for frak sake call for support. We will send whatever we can, when we can. The earlier you do that. The better, that we all survive what is in our future. After all, we are an endangered species. With that in mind, what can I do to support you now?" Bill Adama stopped talking and waited to see what the others would say or ask for.

Kelly smiled, this was a major break threw and up until right then. He was not sure it was going to happen or not. The smile got a little bigger, as the person who was representing the supply department spoke up for the first time in the last few high level meetings. "Sir, I am Hugh Lloyd. We can't predict what we will need as emergency request when this finally kicks off. But right now, our top need right now is grow lights for the greenhouses. This will help us produce the fresh food we are all going to need. I have been authorized to act on supply issues to include selling, trading, or any other thing that might need to be done reference supply. Please pass along to whoever needs to know. That we have some excess armor plate we would like to sell or trade. They are three millimeters or .118 of your inches thick, and are four foot long by four foot wide. We rate them as good, as the current cylon Centurion armor. We are making more, but right now we have twenty sheets available for other uses, that exceed our own needs. We have other things. That we can use to open and keep open trade, with your group after things settle down with the cylons."

Adama sat straighter in the Raptor cabin seat, so fast that the EO for this mission eyes went wide. And he started looking for any threat, the Admiral might have seen and he might have missed. The Galactica had been stripped of almost half of the armor plate, she should be carrying. That was when there were going to make her into a museum piece of all things. Bill Adama understood that the armor had gone back into the Colonial supply systems. Bill had even read that the "recovered" armor had been used to finish up a brand new Mercury Class Battlestar, which was coming off the slipways soon. She still had the supporting heavy vertical and diagonal ribs, which had once held that protection in place. They were still almost all exposed giving the old warship the look of an animal with its ribs showing. Armor plate was hard to make, very time consuming to produce, and hugely expensive in every way a civilian could think of. That had been even before the Colonies had been attack, and wiped out all the large scale armor production facilities that the Colonials had.

In fact Adama had only been barely able to replace the worst battle damage armor plates on both of the warships. That had all he been able to do, since they had stopped running, and before they were found them again. They just had not been able to divert enough of their limited resources to fill that need along with everything else that needed to be done. Now Adama was given another surprise to deal with. On top of them being on planet hiding, and all of the other magic tricks they had pulled off. These people had been able to support all of their armor needs, and had been able to stock pile armor plates on the side. If what these Earthers had said is true? They did indeed have advanced technology in manufacture. That is to have about 320 square feet of battle armor plate, just lying around there little village. Bill was running numbers threw his head as fast as he could. The new Cylon armor, which had been found on their new generation of Centurions, had the best protection known to man. At least on per ton of mass based comparison. At least what was known to the older Adama, and anyone else he had talked to or who had looked a tested sample of the armor.

In other words, it was a lot better. Than what the Colonial tech base, was able to make in anything other than test samples in a lab somewhere. These strangers were able to reproduce the same grade of armor. But they could do it at almost half the thickness as what the cylons had been able to field, was borderline insane. That it was only being made in only four foot sections, was not great news in Adama's book. But twenty plates of that size would be a huge help, and they had said that they were making more. If they were wanting a bunch of grow lights, that his electronic repair ships could make in their sleep. That was impressive; he understood why they might need them. After all his people had been short food more than once, since the cylon attack. And it was not like this planet was the natural habitat, for growing the right grains for making bread or anything like it. He would make sure that the electric repair ship started a long run of grow lights, just to make sure that they had enough for trading to these Earthers. Besides you never know. They might have some good ideas, to help his people grow more of their own food instead of living off of vat algae. "Mr. Lloyd. I think we take that armor plate off of your hands. Please let us know when you have more. I'm sure we could find something to use it on." To Bill his voice sounded odd. Maybe it was just the subject they had been referring to.

Kelly smiled and it was matched the one on Max and Bob's face. It looked like that one project would turn out to be useful after all. Now Kelly wanted to know one more bit of planning information, before any more supply issues could be addressed. He had more experiences than the others in complex plans using large moving masses of metal, and he felt it was his lane to ask this question. "Admiral how long after you're notified that the fourth Basestars has left this system, before you can start your attack on the remaining cylon ships?"

Adama looked at the transmitter and he just blinked two or three times, before he started to give a reply. That was a very good question, and it showed that the person on the other line might be making contingence plans of their own. That was smart move, very smart in fact. Bill was wonder what they might be and made a note to bring this up later, after the cylons were taken care of. "Let's go with fifteen hours, after the report is sent to the Raptor. That should give us some planning room for any issues that might have changed at the last minute. It would also make it so, that the Basestar is going to be far enough away. That even if it comes back to New Caprica for any reason. It would be too late to help any of its friends that had been left behind."

########

The meeting would go on for another few minutes, before the Raptor had to leave to get the Admiral back to his ships safely and with its planned contact schedule. While that meeting was finishing up. Another group conference was just starting to be held. This one was in orbit above the cold planet on one of the cylon Basestars. If cylons ever could get heartburn, this was going to be one of those times that it would have happen. At least for a certain one of the cylon line, it was having another one of those days which had become all too common.

The Hybrid in orbit had noted the report from the ground Centurions of more loses they had just taken place that day. As the numbers were compiled at John's reloaded orders, other programs were automatically activated. One of those programs updated the roster of all cylons available or capable for duty to all of the Basestars. The numbers were now below a programed point, even before the list was completely updated, with the additional lost cylons that could not down load. When that point was reached, the hybrid sent notices out to a list of pre-written programs. This activated a special mandatory group meeting to be called. Very human form cylon, what was not in direct contact with a human, or if they were doing something that was on the approved list as "A due not interrupt". They were all pulled into the massive digital meeting. To most of the human forms, this meeting was not a surprise. They were surprised that it had come this quickly, after it had been set up.

The avatars of all of the Hybrids were bobbing glowing balls of light in this digital space in the massive digital meeting. When it sensed that all were present that should be there, were in fact there. The glowing balls of lights gave their joint statement. "Combat power projections have now fallen to point noted for Operation Four. Orders to move all Centurions from Basestar 02 to the planet are ready. Orders to shift the needed Raider and Heavy Raiders to the rest of the Task Forces from Basestar 02 are ready to be sent. Orders must be approved by majority vote, before sending of these orders. End of line." The pulsing four balls of light stopped talking at once. As they waited the beat of the pulsing light slowed to the average resting heart rate of a human.

Each human form model sent its lines approval or disapproval, to the orders that had been just identified as needed to be sent out or not. Only one model voted "No" to all of the requested orders. But the others would never know that, because of the secret ballot used in this forum. They would never know it had been only the Number Ones, who had voted no. The Ones would know who had voted what way, with in an hour of the vote. As had happened an only a handful of times before, the Number One line had been shut out in a vote.

In a few hours, all four Basestars would start sending down all the Centurions that they had in inactive storage and active duty, down to what was called dirt side. They were to be reorganizing into three all most full strength cylon assault regiments. This would take a few weeks, even for cylons to complete this task. They also would need a lot of elbow room to do the job. This was left over codes and plans that the humans had put in a long time ago. It might have been helpful for the cylons to have remembered that, because Bill Adama had remembered that little detail.

After all of the Centurions had completed the deployment to the hastily prepared ground bases all around the little area occupied by the 12 Colonies little refugee camp. The Raiders and Heavy Raiders moved to fill the few, but recently growing loses for those types of units. The three remaining Basestars would have the same number of Raiders and Heavy Raiders, as they had when they first entered this system. Additionally two dozen Heavy Raiders would be posted, in a clearing right next to the human camp. This would open up more transport slots on the Basestar, which was now on an accelerated time line for the planned emergency supply run. There were a lot of moving parts to this operation, and none of them could have been hidden from any ground based watchers. That is if the cylons had even thought about hiding their movements from the people under their control in the first place. Hiding what they were doing in space, well that was a different story. It was one that they know how to write chapter and verse on how to do. Four hours after the last small craft had left Basestar 02, it prepared for a long trip back up the cylon supply line to refill its now almost empty hull. It was not defenseless. It still had full capital missiles magazines, as well as about half of the normal load of attack craft.


	26. Chapter 26 chpt 17 its on

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and I have used them for this story.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

 **Chapter 17 It is on like Donkey Kong**

 **New Caprica, 749 Days after the Fall of the Colonies, 3 years 5 month AR**

John and June Stapp were looking through the eyepieces of their pair of new 42 inch Dobsonian style telescopes, which had just been finished being built for them a week ago. The Triumvirate had not paid for all of the cost to build the large square devices, they were currently using this time. The leadership had paid for only about a third of the overall cost. This was the payment for classes the two were running for the next six months for anyone who had the desire and the time. When the leadership need something else that the two scientist, and these new telescopes could provide. Then the leadership would pay for those services. That money would go to pay down the balanced still owned on the expensive device. One of those tasks had come recently, and they were supporting it now.

The pair was watching, and keeping detailed records of the amazing starfish shaped warships in orbit above them spread out around this system and close to this planet. John had set up a type of data recorder on the device on the first night. And now they did not to be physically there every minute of the day and night, if they did not want to. But as it happened, they both were watching. When one of a pair of ships in high orbit over the planet, just winked out of existence in a muted flash of light. This was what they had been waiting for, and being paid to report. Within sixty seconds of the Basestar using its jump engines. A message was going out over the Radio to the Refuge camp and Settlement. With this information, and all of the reports about the cylons shifting around. It was quickly decided by both groups independently of each other. That this was the sign that they were looking for, and had been warned to be looking for in the first place. Laura made another note to reward there spy hiding in Colonial One and Ellen Tigh.

Within three minutes of the first message being sent out form the Stapps. It was going out via both Colonial made transmitters. To the waiting Raptor, that was supposed to be hiding at the edge of the solar system every hour of every day and night. One hour after the confirmation that the Raptor had received the message was passes between the two different core human living sites. A mass broadcast was sent to every radio system on the planet's surface. Everyone had been ordered to keep them on in listening silence, since they were made aware that the leadership was waiting for the cylons to drop their pants. It was a simple four sentences message that was broadcast and repeated only four times, before stopping. Each message was also sent out in two languages. The message that was transmitted said. "Mass attack authorized in thirteen hours. Any cylon is far game; we will pick up the parts later. It's on like Donkey Kong. Do your best, and good hunting people." These four lines would signal the start of the final phase of the ground war, for control of this planet.

################

It was one hour in the afternoon local time over the Colonial Refuge camp, when the sun was now visibly moving toward the western horizon. A Number Two model cylon was on the roof of the temporary building, that his kind had put together, back when they first landed on the planet. He was watching the camp of the humans stretched out below him, but not really looking at any one thing in particular. He often found himself coming up here to think, before he went to work with Starbuck. He had first started coming up here not long after the third time, she had managed to "force" him to downloading into a new body. This also had become an all too frequent events for him to enjoy and now he was starting to have visions during each download. This was disturbing, but he just could not leave that woman alone. As far back as he could remember. He had always liked playing with fire, and Starbuck was so much more fun than just a mere open flame.

Today the Two only observed that it was going to be another cold and overcast sky, which was so common on this planet. He made a note of that was starting to grade on him, and maybe he needed to take a break from being ground-side soon. He looked down from the sky, and down into the human camp below him. As he had was watching the vast field of ground human spaceships. He noticed that they seemed to busier than normal, today. He was having a hard time putting his finger on it, but they also just seemed to be a little bit happier than normal.

John had tried to keep word from getting out, about what had really happened to that wood cutting detail. But when only the humans that the cylons had armed were the ones to return before nightfall. It had caused suspicion to rise among the local humans. And when you added the fact that Centurions had to bring the wood back themselves? This made that, an impossible task worthy of Hercules. He was one of many human forms, who had tried to tell John, that it was a complete waste of time and effort to try to cover it up. John had not listen to any of them, and had that idiot Baltar come up with some dumb story to try to cover the mess up…again.

That story was so thin, that any half way smart three year could have fraking see threw after thinking on it for about ten seconds. The Two sometimes called Leoben Conoy, was now wishing. That he had asked for a spot on the Basestar that John had taken, to make the much needed supply run. He could tell that the refugee camp was a Tylium mine ready to explode. As it was there had been more human forms that had wanted to leave. Then there were open cabins, for them to all fit in on that one Basestar. The hybrids had to be called in, again. It had to randomly draw names to fill the limited open space available on that one capital ship. At the last minute something had told him, that if he did leave on that Basestar. He would not see the home system again, or see Starbuck again. He was already thinking that it might have been worth it, to leave any way. And the Basestar had only left this system fourteen hours ago. He was so lost in those deep thoughts, that when he heard the popping sound coming from the camp. It took many long seconds, for it to dawn on him to ask a simple question. Where had the humans gotten the fireworks from?

His eyes fell to some movement on one side of a mud lane running, from north to south. With his cylon enhanced eyesight, he could see three humans struggling in the mud. They were pulling a tarp covered wheeled carriage, normally used to shift wood around the camp, threw the muddy lanes. He did not have anything better to do right now, so he stood there on the roof of the building. Watching them the entire time, and just started to think about those fireworks that were still going off somewhere in the distance. The Two was still watching as the group of humans dropped part of the carriage they were pulling, and the handle and tow bar landed into the mud. Then they quickly pulled the cover off card with wild and rapid arm movements. Now the Number Two got a good look, at what they had been moving in the little two wheeled cart. It was some kind of metal pole mount with a weapon, which he knew well. It was a 15mm Fire Support cannon for a Centurion platoon. There had only been issuing out one of those weapons per platoon of ground combat units, at the start of the new war against the humans.

Now it was becoming more of standard issues to all Centurions. They now had more of the weapons on hand due to the combat losses of "normal" Centurions that had been recovered from the battle sites. The supply ship had even brought out a few hundred more in her hull. Plus now that it was now confirmed, that the locals of this planet. We're not that impressed with the built in automatic weapon of the mighty cylon Centurion. The one that the metal Centurions carried as their primary ranged weapon, and had struck fear into all of those humans. Even with this distracting thought. A cylon should have had better faculties, about what was going on before his eyes. The Two did not drop behind the protection provided by the short wall, which ran around the top of the flat roof of the pre-fab building.

That is until the small group of humans with the cart mounted weapon, had fired the large weapon in his general direction. It had gone right into the two Centurions that were on protection duty at the main entrance of this building. This action now got the other part of the Number Two's brain working, the one that had not been that active in a long time. Just as he was made it to cover behind the thick concrete wall. The pair of cylons on guard duty hit the ground below him, with a splat that the Two could almost hear. Where the Number Two only got a slight rip in on the sleeve of his fake leather jacket. The pair of Centurions fell to the dirt with sparks flying from the impacts of the heavy rounds, and fast moving rounds onto their bodies. As soon as the Two hit the hard concrete that made up the roof of the building. He started moving behind the short wall to a better location, or at least different location than he currently was in. He was very careful to make sure no part of his body rose above the short wall, which was protecting him from being view by the humans below him.

Deep in the building that the Two was belly crawling over. Starbuck was sitting in her apartment come prison, steering at one of the concrete walls with a glassy eyed look. She was trying to figure out another way of how to kill the Number Two, when it came back to play mind games with her again. The problem was that she would have to do that. And still not hurt the little girl, which had been forced into her care. Unlike the Two on the roof, Starbuck had heard weapons fire before. And lots of cylon weapons had been fired at her, in her short life. So when it first started sounding threw the thick concrete walls. She had started to stack a few certain items that she had already figured out would work. She had those items scattered around the three little rooms, so that it would not be obvious what they might be good for if they were combined.

It did not take long to stack those objects, up to the right height. So that she was able to see out the one, and only window that she had access to in her apartment. The high mounted small window was just a little too small for her to make it out of. Even it if did not have the heavy duty metal bars restricting the opening even farther than the narrow window frame. Now that she could almost see, the weapons firing sounds were driving her even more nuts. Not because the fire was still going on, but she still could not tell where it was coming from. What was left of her mind, was quickly playing tricks on her about what might be happening out in the camp. That was so far yet so close to her prison cell, and the rest of the humans that were left alive.

Where those Fraking cylons killing everyone that was left? The one option she had not thought of, was that the humans would be attacking the more powerful cylons with mostly their own weapons. That line of thinking would have been crazier, than even her very bent mind would have been able to come with all on its own. While she was straining to see what was going on, she felt the building shake a little, then a little more. And this time she saw what she thought might be dust curtains from weapons strikes falling off the wall somewhere over her head. Then in a split second, there was little doubt that it was a weapon strike against the building. A few eye blinks later, and her whole world had changed.

That was because the next series of heavy thuds ended with light dust falling down her the back of her neck from the overhead ceiling. She launched herself off the stack of items against the wall, and fell on her backside looking up at the ceiling in disbelief. Near the top of the high ceiling was a hole that had not been there before today. She would have noticed something like that before now. The hole was just on a line with the floor above her, and she could see the crescent shaped hole on her side of the bottom of floor/ceiling line. Something hard and fast had been moving at a slight upward angle, when it had struck the outer wall of the building. It was still moving deeper into the cylon control building after it had left her room/apartment, maybe stopping somewhere on the second floor. How far in did it go? She did not know, and she really did not care that much about it.

Now Starbuck was pissed. And her face looked like someone had kicked her in a sensitive place, and not after kissing her first. She was yelling without knowing it. "Hey you Frakers! You started without me! Now don't kill them all, before you get me the Frak out of here!" She was yelling up towards the, to small and closed window.

The little girl was now hiding under the coffee table not knowing what to do, but shake and try not to cry. She was steering up the crazy blond haired woman, that she had been was her new mother. The only things that she knew, was that this woman was acting more crazy than normal. That and there was a lot more noise going on around her, than was normal for her to have to deal with. She also knew, that she did not like any of it one little bit. Not any of this, so she put her hands over her ears and wished for it all too just go away. Deep down, all she could do is hope that it would all go away. And the sooner it happened the better, it would be in her opinion.

While Kara Thrace was yelling at the wall and ceiling, a dozen Colonials rushed the main entrance to the cylon built building. Their lack of combat experience showed as they made the head long rush at the door. The attacking humans were not military or even having the basic of military training. They were just volunteers, with good intentions. They were so under-trained that when they rose for the cover provided by any random object, they did not fire there personnel weapons. In short they were armatures going against programed killers. All without providing any covering fire to their fellow chargers.

A Six was looking out the window from a first floor office, she had taken that office as her own not long after the building was finished being assembled. She had been drawn there by the strange sound coming from outside of its thick armored glass panes. She got to the window just in time to see one of her Centurions fire it's built in weapons, and hit many of the charging humans. That sight brought a grim smile to her face, at first. Then she saw that the humans were not going down, or staying down. She was stunned when she saw one human pick themselves up out of the mud, and continue the charge towards the metal door. Her cylon eyes had "seen" four to six puffs coming off the coat to show that the human had been struck by the cylon made bullets square in the body. It was like the God its self, was protecting the humans from the cylon weapons fire. More than once, one of the attacks would fall down when hit by cylon weapons fire. But then the humans would have a shocked expiration on their faces. That is before smiling broadly, and rejoining the fight against the few and few remaining cylon defenders. The weapons in there hand were of Colonial Military designed, but she knew there was no way that they could have that many military weapons in this camp. Deep down, she doubted that Adama and Cain that many weapons in there whole armories, when the war started much less keeping them hidden in the camp for so long.

Then she saw four other humans, trying to drag a heavy cylon weapon threw the thick mud between the grounded ship and the prefab building. Soon they trying to aim the cylon made weapon at the building, and she got an idea were the extra Colonial weapons might have come from. There was no way that they could have hidden one of those big bustards here, before they had taken over the planet. She even doubted that the humans had ever recovered any of those 15mm cannons, before they had found the humans again. It had to have come from one of the down Centurions, which had repeatedly littered this planet surface for so many months. They had to have gotten it inside the camp somehow. But from who would they have gotten them from? That was her last question the human looking cylon ever had.

The Six had been so transfixed on what was going on out the window. She did not understand the risk she had exposed herself to. The massive cylon weapon fired off a long burst, and it almost completely bisected her about half way through the long burst that had come from the heavy weapon. The weapon's hard-nosed projectile had enough energy that even though, she had been standing behind the thick contract wall to kill anyone in the room. She was not even been downloaded into a new body, that being hit by a cylon made weapon should have allowed her to do. The limited download capabilities on the three remaining basestars in this system, were already in full on "Overload Mode". They would not accept any more business today, thank you for stopping by.

Attacks had stared all over the place, and all at once. Or so close together, that it was as good as being simultaneous attacks. Hundreds of cylons had already been taken down by standard weapons, and this had over loaded the limited downloading mainframes on all of those ships. Some of cylons were taken down by Colonial weapons or Earth made weapons like rail guns or missiles. All of those that did not interfere with the cylons downloading process, so the memory banks had over filled very quickly. And that, between the distance to the nearest dedicated resurrection ship, and the nebula? All of those cylon souls just were forever lost. An Eight's last thought, had been how this all could have happened. And why had her god let this all happen to them in the first place. That was before the computer dumped her program into the bit bucked named file thirteen.

 **HQ 456** **th** **Cylon Assault Regiment's base camp 100 miles north of New Caprica.**

A mixed group of human form cylons, and metal Centurions were working in a large canvas type tent. The tent had been set up to be used as the Regimental Head Quarters, for this unit. It was the oldest cylon combat Regiment still active, in fact it had been a human unit raised not long after the founding of Caprica. It had been the first large unit to convert from human fighters to metal ones. It had fought in almost all of the major battles during the First Cylon War. And it had played key roles, in the complete subjugation of two of the twelve planets of man in this war. The tent was in the exact enter of an area that held over two thousands of cylons. Every one of them would have reported to this tent for any orders or directions. It was a massive force that had never lost a battle of any note. They were a force of nature, and of their god's wrath against the humans.

Now everyone in that tent was watching a set of monitors, which had been hung from the heaviest support roof beams over their heads. This setup was a throwback all the way back to the days when the Colonies of Kobal were still being reunited under one government. Each of the Assault Regiments had set up the same system for better command and control of the large number of ground fighters, when they first sat down on this planet. With the strange metal locals having the ability to kill cylons. The cylons had lost the ability to receive vital real time intelligence updates from any of their scouts and outlying defensive points. At least the way they had been used to being able to, and had grown accustomed to, over the last few years.

The cylons had recently adopted a human trick, for keeping an eye on things. They had set up little remote Imaging devices all over the place. They had been put them up around several potential threat areas, and axis of advances. All to keep them under constant observation, at the Headquarters or command tents. All of those devices fed what they saw, directly into these command tents without needed to be processed in one of the computers mounted in one of the Basestar. It gave each of the ground unit's operational independents, and John had hated the idea. That was one of the main reasons he had fought so hard, not to deploy a single larger unit planet side. They were just lucky that he only had to deal with it for a few days, before he left with his flagship.

The latest round of ground attacks had been going on, for just under an hour now. It did not seem to have started all at once to the cylons in the different command tents. They had a lot more sensors out in the forest, than what the command building in New Caprica had one. To them it looked to more of a wave of violence moving through the forest. It was spreading out to new areas at a steady rate, from three different location. The attacks stared on the farthest out patrolling units of cylons, and then they had started its march closer and close to main bases and the human refugee camp. The wave of violence was wiping out every outlying cylon that it meet. One or two of the human forms in the different command tents, thought that they might have missed a few cylons. But they did not think that it would be that many, and any survivors out there. Where not trying to communicate with any one in command, just yet.

Just outside of the massive tent that was where the control centers for the cylon combat force. It was just a normal day, so far. No matter what the reports were saying that was quickly turning into a float of information. There was some faint and odd noise, which could be heard. If you were not talking or moving at the right time. After about half an hour. This turned into the first sounds of combat, which gave any indications that the trouble was real. It was the distance sound of gun fire, of sonic booms, and sometimes the faint smoke trails of missiles in flight seeking some kind of target that could have been in the air or on the ground. The last sight was new and on this planet, at least new to the overwhelming majority of the cylons that were viewing it today. All cylons knew, that new always meant trouble for the cylons. When two new things happened in the span of a few hours? Well this caused most of the human forms to start sweating under their body armor.

The ten patrolling Heavy Raiders, which had been fling in support that day. Had already been shot down, in the first few opening minutes of this new wave of combat actions against the cylons. It would take another ten minutes for the first wave of scrambled Heavy Raiders would be on station, to provide fire support to the ground forces in the forest below. That wave of attack craft was the total flying support that had been stationed on this planet, when John had left over a dozen hours ago. The next air support would be coming down from space. That is after coming off of one of the three Basestars in systems. The longer this attack lasted? The more firepower the cylons could bring to the field to try to counter this massive wave of insanity. The cylons on the ground just had to live long enough, to get small craft's weapons on an enemy.

What the cylons did not know, was that the humans both wanted them to do this. And to remain totally focused on the ground combat. There was no way that they cylon military commanders could plan for this contingency. No other group or human military, had ever wanted the cylons to focus solely on them before today. That was only what human units did, if they wanted to die in the foxhole and trenches they had dug.

Those cylons that were listed as part of the command group for the regiment, were all transfixed on the set of display screens before them. They could see that one group of six attackers, had separated themselves from the main body of running metal monsters. This smaller group of attackers seemed to be working toward a specific target area, for some unknown reason. This command group was beyond the ability to do anything like deep thinking by this time. This regiment's outer defensive location, looked to be in the same general direction that this small group of attackers was heading towards. Two of the attackers looked to be nine foot tall female shaped and painted Centurions of some kind. But each one had a lot more firepower, speed, and armor than a dozen Heavy Raiders all put together in one package. And somehow they were walking or running across the ground at speed that not even a Centurion could match, or any other human or cylon ground based combat vehicle. Everyone had seen at least two different images of this type of enemy. The few images that had been displayed by the hybrids were not enough to prepare the cylon army for what they were seeing today.

Those two female painted war-machines, were backed up by a pair of Centurions that looked to have been made to look like they were covered in black plate armored. The black armor was highlighted with large white human looking bones painted on the surface The last pair of attackers coming towards that defensive point, looked like they were some kind of wheeled all terrain transports. It did not take but a few images for the computers set up in those tents, to analyze the images they were receiving. Surprising to the cylons, it was confirmed in only a few minutes. That those four wheeled devices did not match anything ever built in Colonial or Cylon controlled space. This information was passed along to the other two assault regiments Headquarters, the cylon command center in the refugee camp, as well as the three Basestars still in this system. None of those other controlling centers had any more clue about what they might be, than did the first command center had been able to work out.

The cylons were watching the strange ATV's almost as much as the two female motif nine foot tall hyper fast Centurions. Each one had a driver and a second person standing in the back that operated a twin pintle mounted weapon. That weapons looked a lot like two cylon support weapons affixed side by side, in some kind of twin mount set up. The two things in the ATV's looked at least human like, but covered in metal body armor of some kind. So for the time being, they were simply being identified as a different, and smaller type of enemy Centurion. In fact they were the closest to Centurion in looks and size. Then the cylons had seen today, or in the limited feeds coming from attacked and now very dead cylons so far.

The two ATVs were slowly falling behind the other fast moving bipedal machines at a steady rate, but they seem to be game to try to keep up with the oddly painted bipedal machines. At first this was seen as an accident or simple different capabilities between the equipment in use. Then it was assessed. That it looked like that, had been planned for them to do that. And not because of any issues with the wheeled gun trucks, or bad coordination between the group under observation. The spreading out group was moving in ways, which said they had planned for and practiced out maneuvers beforehand. Nothing was said as one of the ATV on the screens was just launching itself up into the air, and over a small clump of half rotting logs. Those log had seemed that they would have blocked its path of advance for any ground base transports, but Centurions and maybe heavy combat tanks.

A Number Six standing off to one side of the key group of leaders for this regiment, absently thought that they looked to be great fun to drive one. That is if they had not looked to be on the hunt for cylons at the moment. As soon as the ATV landed, the twin gun mount open fire on what remained of a group of bypassed Centurion standing near a mass of nine other blasted metal bodies. The heavy bullet impacts started striking around the single metal war-machine, were picked up by the nearby remote camera in high detail. The command tent had a very good images, as the rounds started to land on the lone machine with flashes of sparks one after the other. Until it was a literal rain shower of impact sparks coming off of the lone Centurion. When the lone Centurion fell, the ATV closed on to the still moving machine, but now prone cylon. Then the driver reached out of the ATV, and towards the now feebly crawling and leaking machine. Whatever was in the driver's one hand, it cut the prone Centurion's head clean off its mount in a flash of a moving arm. It was one smooth movement, and it was like a knife going through butter and not high tech cylon armor plate. It was very disturbing to watch, and they were getting close to the main defensive point. Those points that had not even had been built up to the old First Cylon War standard that they should have been. That kind of thing took a lot of energy, to do all of that building and digging. And besides whom on this planet would attack a cylon regiment? The command group of cylons had order only the most basic of defensive positions be built, and only slowly improved on. They had not wanted to run the batteries down to fast on their metal counter parts. Now it was looking like, they were about to find out who had felt that they had the gun, armor, and manpower to take them on in a face to face battle.

One of the Six's turned to one side, and looked at an Eight in the massive tent with her. She had a haunted look in her eyes, and with a low voice she addressed the other female cylon. "This must almost have been what it was like, when we attacked the Colonies. All they could do was watch us killed them one by one, after we activated the back door program to their computers." These were just a few words spoken in a hushed voice, but they had a powerful impact on all that had heard those few words. The joy that had been associated with that memory, now turned sour in a blink of an eye.

The shorter female cylon was shaking her head in disbelief, and agreement to what the other cylon had just said. Without thinking, she added her own replay. "If there really is a hell? Then this must be one of the punishments, which was put in it for those unworthy of him. God is given us a preview of what is waiting for all of us." A tear started to fall down the Eights check. "It's because of what we have done in his name to the humans. We will be punished!"

The second Number Six in the group did not know what to say. Or if she believed what the other cylon said in the first place. She was to busy having a very human reaction, one she had never had before today. She was afraid, truly, and very afraid of what was going to happen in the next few hours. But she could not stop watching the different screens displaying data, as it was coming into the command tent. She, just like the others in the tent, could not avert their eyes from the train wreck they somehow knew was coming.

The Six's mouth was now hanging open, but not saying a word. Then movement off to one side caught her eyes, and she was drawn to new screen. It was a feed of a mixed group of cylons in a dirt wall defensive position only about three miles from her current location. The actions of the one attacking ATV had kept the whole command tents attention. And they all had lost track of the rest of the group, they had been tracking for the last fifteen minutes. That had been very bad timing, to lose what the most military trained humans would have called "their situational awareness". Maybe if the cylons had done more realistic training, they might not have been so easily distracted.

The two very female painted nine foot tall monsters leaped over three hundred feet across an open field, to land in the center of the cylon controlled defensive point. They did not activate any type of weapons that the watchers could see from a nearby imaging device that had caught their jump. It was an all-out hand to hand melee, that should have been so one sided. That the strange metal attackers would have been put down faster, than a cylon could add 2 pulse 2. Should have been a forgone conclusion. The dirt wall defensive point had been occupied by a full platoon of Cylon troopers. It was forty armed, armored, alert, and ready cylons vs two the strangers. The cylons would have been right. It really was not much of a fight, from a certain point of view.

The pair of strangers should have been over whelmed just by the sheer numbers of cylons in that one point alone, but that was not the case. The cylons fired wildly and would more often than not. They hit their own kind, instead of the large oddly painted wildly attacking war-machines among them. Even when the cylon fire did hit the incredibly fast moving enemy, that was so close to them. The cylon made rounds would sometimes bounced off metal hide of the attackers, and hit one of their own kind in the pit of Hades they were standing in. The ricochet still had enough power at this of a short combat range. That they could take out both Centurions, and the human forms that were in full body armor that were still in the defensive point. Those cylons hit by cylons weapons fire, turned out to be the lucky ones today. Because the two demons started firing a head mounted direct energy weapons, after using fist, and some kind of bladed weapon to eliminate the cylon presents in close vicinity to them. These blade like weapons were mounted on both of their arms of the nine foot tall women. And all were more than capable enough to dismember all of the cylons in the strong point that those weapons touched. Every move and every second of the combat was broadcast to the central command post, in extreme resolution and in too much vivid detail. Very few cylons that were viewing the transmission, would enjoying what they were witnessing. It was the most brutal combat that any cylon had seen in a long time, and it was not over yet. In fact this was only the beginning of the lessons that the Earthers had prepared to give the cylons today.

One human form, a Number One, was able to get out of the killing pit. That was supposed to have protect them from any close ranged attack launched by the humans, or anyone else for that matter. It made it a whole forty feet out of the pit, before some kind of energy weapon that was mounted on the shoulder of the attacking monsters fired. The One had turned a little, and the running cylon was blown into two complete separate wet parts in a flash of red steam. The only reason that the cylons in the Headquarters knew that an energy weapon had been used. It was that this camera that had the right field of view. And it was one of the few that could see in many different wave lengths. That is other than just visible light, and take those images at one time.

That was the last defender in that area, but just as the Six was about to look away from the very graphic images. An icon showed up on one of the screens on the far side do the room. It was indicating that a pair of Heavy Raiders, was about to enter the area for support of the now lost defensive point. A simple message sent by unknown fingers, directed the pair to attack that point on the planet. No one in the cylon regiment knew that those two craft were the last cylon airborne assets left on his planet.

The Six turned and looked at the main screen and her eyes went wide. Even the humans could have been able to notice the two attacking cylon craft by then. The two attacking enemy demons were just standing in the emplacement, surrounded by the bodies of died cylons. The Six was watching the now non-moving demons with rapped attention. She was thinking that maybe they were waiting for the rest of their little group to catch up to them at that location, which they had just taken by force of arms. She had no idea how wrong she was, but she was about to find out…the hard way.

The cylons never would know why the two attackers had stopped, and were standing like twin metal statues. But they had, and the incoming air support was going to take advantage of that little event, and the apparent lack of sound judgment from the pair of attackers. The twin space craft made a full speed run and when the controlling biologic part said it was the right time. They both fired there full load of missiles at the now lost cylon defense point. A couple of the human form cylons in the command tent started to cheer at the top of their lungs as the smoke trails flew toward the targeted area. More started to cheer, when the screen showed the rippled explosions of the twelve plus missile impacting the small area of the dirt walled pit in super quick secession of fire and death. The cylons in the command tent were able to see a massive movement of mud, vegetation, and bits of metal that was visibly flying in the up in the air among the great fountains of smoke. The smoke was still billowing up from those explosions, when the twin craft flashed over the impact location going a good bit faster than the speed of sound for this thickness of the local atmosphere.

When the two Heavy Raiders were just clearing the site of their massive ordnance drop. Four strange streaks of odd color oval flame shot out of the dark cloud of dust and smoke, made by all of those cylon missiles impacts. They were fallowed in an eye blink latter by something this command post, had never seen this clearly before. Frist the pair of cylon craft where quickly overtaken from behind, by what looked like four pairs of fireballs moving incredibly fast threw the smoke filled air. All of this destructive power closed in on the fleeing Heavy Raiders engine area. Next on the path were the Earth built missiles the command cylons were seeing for the first time. They were very fast, faster than a cylon missile deployed on the battle or on the drawing boards somewhere down the supply chain. Which until the cylons had come to this planet, those had been the fastest missiles ever seen in combat by human or cylons. But the fireballs that were chasing the cylons space craft were even faster than those missiles chasing the fleeing cylons craft. They were not traveling near the speed of light, but they were moving a lot faster than anything that the cylons had seen before. Only three of the burst of fireballs hit the targeted cylon craft. If those trip hammer hits had not caused enough damage on the fleeing craft, to bring them down the Heavy Raiders? Than the two high explosive warheads hitting each of the pair soon after those fireballs had hit. That was more than enough damage to make sure those two craft did not return to base. And to bring craft both back do to the not so loving embrace of the ground, which was below them

All of this had been caught on vivid and high definition color, for everyone who cares to look at it might want to. That was thinks to the rear mounted cameras on the two craft. It was even recorded for later viewing, and it was also automatically packaged for mass transmission. That way it could be re-transmitted to the other HQs around the planet and command centers, and now they could see what their near term future held for them. But the big main computers on each of the basestars were happy to see another weapon used, where it might be evaluated by many different and very powerful computer systems. They had a running list of weapons types that the cylon mainframe had identified, so far. On another screen in every major control center, this data was on display and updated in near real time. That is if any of the human forms ever took the time to look at the hard won data.

Another one of the human forms, a Number Five, looked around the command tent. "Why are our missile not hitting those things?" This cylon had grown to understand that when a cylon made missile hit even near a target. That target was at least visibly affected if not total disassembled on the spot.

Before anyone else in the command tent could say something as t reply to what the Number Five as asked. A dark haired Number Two gave him a reply, which the Two knew the Five would not like. "You know they are called Miss iles and not Hit iles right?" The tone and the look the Two gave the Five, was pure contempt. The Two just could not help himself, he just could not resist the urge to push someone else's buttons. Not when it was set up so perfectly like that one had been.

So far the list already had these mystery attacker using Cylon weapons, Colonial weapons, now they had two different sizes of missile bodies to go with Direct Energy Weapons that the cylons knew about. They still did not have a frame of reference on how to gauge the title of Direct Energy weapons. About the only thing those mainframes could do, was break them down a little. They grouped the DEW's into some that were speed of light, and other where not. As far as the Cylon and the Colonial military had been concerned. Direct Energy weapons, which would be of any use in a military environment. Where something you found only in books. And those books would not be of an engineering kind, but the make believe kind sold on the cheap racks at the spaceport. However that did not mean that a lot of thought and computer cycles had not been used, to think about that type of weapon. Without any frame of reference, they could not tell what the weapons were doing, much less how they were doing it to the cylons forces. The computers only knew that these attackers were doing it. Maybe if the cylons had more time. They have been able to work out some of the deficiency in there knowledge base, but it looked like they were not going to be given that time.

The cylon also had found out that day. That whatever seeking system that these missiles used, there jammers and counter measures had been non-effective in every way you could look at it, so far. The result of those missiles warheads detonations, were again something that they had never seen or recorded before in all of recorded history. Well the history outside of some of the more outlandish scowls from Kobal. The power of some of those warhead were sometimes just shy of a nuclear weapon for its size, but without needing the nuclear bomb part to do the damage. The cylons had more experience with this type of weapon, so the computer was working hard on how something like that might have been worked out. But others were like the output of the napalm like weapon, which was off the scale of what they had known you could field as a weapons. The computers working on these deduction, but they were slowly being over whelmed by all of the new data going into them. These computers were designed for war-fighting, not education and research.

While the battle computers worked on their jobs as best that their programing would allow them to. The two legged cylons, were not doing there's. All eyes in the command tent were locked onto the different combat screen, so hard. That they did not notice one blip on the DRADIS system way off to one side of the tent. That is until an alarm stated to giving off a loud wailing sounded threw out the command area, even outside of the tent. After a few heartbeats, a very long time for it to take a cylon to react. All eyes were now on a console marked simple label that said "Missile Warning".

Now the group of cylons was visibly confused. Who in their right mind, would shoot long range missiles at the cylons? They were the kings of Missile technology, and there counter missile ability. That subject had filled volumes of Colonial Military text for decades. It was only standard practice to still set up counter missile systems, even when they knew that they did not need to. Cylons always stuck to plans and operational procedure, no matter what. . It was just ingrained into a deeply buried set of coding of their kind, which few of them knew about They only had started to make variations to those fixed plans over the last few years, and that was one area they had not gotten to yet.

This time it did not help them, not at all. Four different automatic high speed gun turrets that had been in placed after the second wave of Heavy Raiders had dropped off their cargo of cylons for reorganizing. They had been emplaced, near the location the command tent had been planned to be placed. Those four weapons were just like those that were mounted on a Battlestar during the Frist Cylon War and these mounts even dated back to the time. They were tacking the incoming missile, and fired about one second after the notice was posted inside the HQ's tent and the alarm had sounded. Alerting everyone that attacking enemy weapons were a threat to this location. Those weapons did not care, that their builders did not believe what was happening in the real world. All they cared about was that after a long absents, they had a target that they could shoot at. They were even able to hit the single large incoming missile, five times with parts of the rapid fire cannons burst. Those cannon still use the same type of rounds, as was used on Vipers, Raiders, and Heavy Raiders. They were even still in use as well as on human Battlestars, and older class of cylon Basestars. They were well proven machines, with the reputation of begin able to get the job they were designed for, done.

Now it was the controlling computers for the anti-missile gun's turn to be confused. It did not understand what was going on, with the incoming data. That it's built in DRADIS system was telling the master computer over and over again. This was beyond what it could handle or was designed to handle all of those decades ago. The system started shifting more and more computer power to running a self-testing program, to work on the problem. That number of shell hits should have been enough to take out five different targets. Instead this one missile still kept coming according toward the DRADIS system that was tracking it threw the sky. Soon the targeting computer went into full blown shock, and it shut down due to having the computer equivalent of a nervous breakdown in combat. That was not the best option at that time, for the anti-missile guns to do that. And it did not even let the "Command and Control element" know about any problems it might be having today. Much less tell them that it had just had a heart attack, and was no longer willing to play today or ever again for that matter. It was having the computer equivalent, of needing a safe place for a few decades.

With the last ditch anti-missile systems down, after only firing those few rounds. The cylons on duty in the command tent that day did not have time really to do anything else, but die. This was going to be caused a smart long range missile. It was carrying what the people from Rift Earth would have call a medium sized Plasma/Heat warhead and it was dropped dead onto the target. It had found after a long flight at a flight level around 500 feet. That was a low flight level for the imported weapons. The missile hit right in the center of all the transmissions stands the cylons had been so kind to set up. It was still moving at just under 1400 miles per hour. Even with the damage that had been done to it, by the cylon anti-missile system. A modified Earther sensor, had found the cylons in this expanse of woodland without it being that much of a challenge to its upgraded smart targeting systems. The missile had been flying for just over 450 miles without being spotted, until the last few seconds of flying time. At a speed of just a little less than 1400 mph, the missile pitched over into a final vertical dive. It was headed down to what its sensor told it was the ground, and its target at just below a speed of Mach 2. The pull of the planets gravity add another almost another hundred mile per hour to his speed, at the time of its warhead impact with the fabric tent.

The outer martial of the HQ's tent was not strong enough to set off the crush switch, to detonate the Earth made warhead. So it continued along its path, till it was buried about two feet into the soft ground below the "ground level" of the tent floor. It made it that far before the backup sensor told a dumb computer, that it had slowed down enough to have been at the right place. Next it told the computer it was that it might be the time to go boom. So it did just that and the earth made warhead was happy. The whole area that was around fifty feet from the very center of missile body was in the prime blast radius, for this type of weapon. Everything that was within that set distance was just gone, in brief flash of heat and bright light the missile warhead released in one massive wave of destruction. Anything within that distance, was all burned down into its component elements. It all happened in less than a split second after the warhead, became very happy. This completely destroyed the Command and Control of this storied regiment, before most of the unit had even seen combat today.

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In a tall tree only about two miles away from the cylon base. A lone figure was watching the slowly rising small mushroom cloud where something important for the cylons had once been, and now was gone. The NG-EX10 Gladius Light had been watching this large group of cylons from under some Naruni Enterprise camouflage sheets, which he had been issued by someone on Major Weston's staff. It and a second person, this one in a NG-X33 Forester suit. Both had been teamed up, and successfully working together for a while now. It had been a surprise for both of them that they, worked so well together. They had not been out head hunting the cylons, the Colonials had gotten very concerned when that term had been passed around. That is what they would have been doing back home, when they went looking for commanders of enemy units to kill at the start of a major battle. This method was used, so that it might lower the combat efficiency of the now leaderless unit that was about to be attacked. As it turned out, it was a very effective method for use on both cylon and humans.

This had been a hard mission from the very first meeting, from step one of the planning. It would seem that not one the Earthers they could talk too, had ever seen cylon large unit headquarters before. It was accepted knowledge left over from the first cylon war, that they would have set up one somewhere. As luck would have it. The pair just knew what they were looking at, when they saw the tents going up in the middle of disturbed ground. It also had what looked like air defense positions all around it, to maybe protect it from air attack of some kind. The pair put two and two together, and thought they came up with at least three and a half. Whatever the cylon felt that needed air defense weapons must be worthwhile for the humans to remove from the battlefield.

They had called back the information, and much to their surprise. They were told that they were going to have to spot the target, for someone else to take out instead of them getting the job. It had seemed that Major Weston had already known about this location. It did not take them long to figure out. That Captain Kelly and Major Weston were going to use one of the few, and impossible to replace, long range missiles on what they had found hiding in the nearby woods. The both had known that long range missiles sometimes have nuclear warheads mounted on them, this bit of thinking caused the pair a sleepless night or two. After talking with another group while waiting. They were told that those types of weapons would have been rare. Beside you normally did not need a spotter for those long range weapons, close counted when you were dealing with nuclear warheads.

When they both were out of the massive eighty foot tall tree. They picked up their hidden weapons at the base of the forest titan, but strangely they did not fixed the disturbed soil afterword. They were moving away from their tree hides at the wolf trot, before the smoke from the burning cylon command tent had reached its towering apex. They had already moved about 500 yards away from the tree. When they sent the one word report of "Splash" over there built in Radio sets on the general frequency for all to hear. Now it was time to find some cylons for them to blow into slightly used spare parts. That was what they really want to have done, in the first place. Dropping a large warhead on a HQ? Well that would kill a bucket load of cylons, all in on shot. But it was nothing, like when you could count them as you walked passed them while they were still smoking on the ground.

Saul looked across the table to the woman at the other side of the wooden table top. There were five other people in the shack, turned school, and now turned into combat control center for the humans in the Refugee camp. He would have hated to admit it, but it felt good to be back in the command loop again. It had almost killed him, while he had been in hiding from the cylon named John. "We have control of, or have taken out of play. All most all of the cylon fixed points in the city. The only down sides are. That we have not been able to get anyone into Colonial One, and the group that attacked "The Building" has not report back in yet."

"The Building" was the only real building in the whole refugee camp, and it did not need another name. Maybe cylon HQ would have fit better, but everyone including the cylons just called it "The Building". When they talked about the ugly prefab structure. Saul looked down and marked off some of the graphics on the homemade map of the camp. It had been set up in the center in the main student teaching area of the tent. After updating the "map" he continued with the information he had just been handed, by a way too young to be serving boy. "Jammer and his group have taken out all of the Main Gate guards, and are turned it over control to Team Four now." Again Saul updated the map with the information he had just told Roslin.

Jammer and Duck's combat teams were the most heavily armed, armored, and fastest combat units inside the camp that did not belong to the cylons anymore. "I want to send Jammer or Duck over to check on Colonial One, to see if our contact really has the rest of the computer codes to unlock the jump engines. The other option is that I can send them to reinforce that operation at The Building. I want to keep one team in reserve until we get and update from the Earthers. What do you think Laura?" Saul was the military leader, but he had to quit the job after he had found out what his wife had been doing to protect him from the cylons. All most all of the planning for this operation, had been done with very little input from him. He could whistle the tune and had gotten himself up to speed very quickly. Laura Roslin had really stepped out of her comfort zone, and with a little help from a few military people around the camp. She had come up with this plan. Any decisions would be Laura's to make or not make. Everyone was looking at, and to her for that leadership. Saul being in the tent did not take away or undermine her position in any noticeable way. Plus Saul knew what would happen if it looked like there was a conflict between them.

Roslin looked at the homemade map, which stretched out before her and Saul on an equal homemade table. Saul was asking for direction for the next move in the operation that was under her command. He had already hinted at what way he wanted to go by saying it first in his statement. She could take this advice or even pick a third target, if she felt it was the right move for her to make. She looked at the data on that had just been added to the huge hand drawn map of the refugee camp. She was looking at it and studying every way that she could. She used her powerful and quick mind to remember all of those lessons she had been on the receiving end from Bill, Saul, and every other military person she had talked to. She made a face then looked up Saul. "Send one of them to take over Colonial One. If that Fraker Baltar is still alive, we need to try to keep him that way. He has a lot to answers for, if we win this little misunderstanding. We will have to let the group at The Building take care of themselves for now. Send Duck's team over after we get a second team has completed their tasks. I want to keep a combat team in reserve as soon as we have one." She stopped talking for a few seconds, then dropped the command hammer. "Let that young man know that, if he runs into trouble. He is on his own until we get another more powerful team together."

She had given the commands, and that was all she needed to do. She did not know it, but she was quickly rising in the ranks of respect among the fighters of her people. She was now almost as highly regarded by them as Bill Adama, himself was…almost that is. But she was walking the walk, and talking the talk. One or two of the people in the tent gave knowing looks to each other as they got ready to send the commands out to the right people.

Saul passed a note that he had already written to a young kid to take to the radio section, so that Jammer would know where he was needed to go next. Saul now was ready for the next subject that needs to be taken care of. He had seen a problem and had taken initiative to fix it. Now he had to let the Boss Lady know what he did, to see if she wanted or needed to change it. "I have started setting up some fallback positions along this route." He pointed out a line on the map spread out on the wooden table. "They are going to mount some of the extra cylon heavy weapons that we could not deploy to in our initial attack. I have them being set up there, here and here. We can only man them with a skeleton force of one or in one case two people. It's only as a just in case. We can have Raiders inbound right now, and don't know it. None of the ships we have contact with, have that greatest of DARDS systems mounted on them. When those little frakers start coming in on us. We are not going to have the much warning about it." Saul stopped talking abruptly.

He was interrupted with the sound of gunfire coming from what, sounded like it was coming from right outside the tent they were standing in. As Saul slightly turned toward where he thought the sound had come from. The thin material of the tent now sported a line of holes, at the top near the top length running main support beam. Luckily it had not been blown in half by the incoming fire. Everyone else in the tent ducked lower to the ground. Weapons were pulled out, from wherever any one might have hidden them on their person, with lightening quick hand movements. Saul, who was the oldest of the lot, but also with the most combat experience. Was already moving toward the tent flap at a rapid pace without knowing he was moving. He was leaving the rest of the people in the tent behind steering at his back in confusion. Everyone in the tent could hear more firing coming from outside of the tent very clearly. Laura and Saul were short personnel that they could armor and armored they had to made a few hard chooses. They were only able to keep a single person, and they had been detailed to keep an eye out for them as a guard point outside the tent. They only had so many people with too many objectives, and they had prioritized other needs over their own. That now was looking to have been a bad idea on their part, after all. The Ex-President now turned leader of the Colonial remains, fallowed the old man out the tent flap. She was drawing her own weapon from its holster as she went at almost a run out of the tent

A young twenty something woman was firing her pistol two handed at a group of Centurion being led by three human form cylons. This group of cylons had been on a scouting mission of their own, when all of the attack had started happening around the refugee camp. The Six that was leading this group of cylons had a flash of an idea. It was that the humans might somehow, have tunneled out of the cylon control camp. They had been out looking for proof of this tunnel existence, when the fighting had broken out inside the prison/refugee camp. They had not found anything while they had been outside the fence. Which the cylons had built around all of the grounded space ships, as soon as they had the materials. But the Six knew that somehow the conniving Fraking Bitch Roslin, must have been involved in this new round of conflict. It did not take her long, before she was leading her group to cut the head of the rebellious snake off, and she had a good idea where that snake might be hiding. She was one of the few Six's that did not trust Laura Roslin, and never had like the idea of working with her in the first place.

The Six and her group had not been fired on as they moved threw a new hole they had made in the perimeter fence and into the field of ships. Everything seemed fine, except the lack of human or cylons moving around the area. That was until she turned around the nose of one of the grounded human spaceships. Then she took two rapid fire impacts to her chest, before the sound of the gun fire could even reached her ears. She had been moving faster than the rest of the group, driven by anger at what she thought of as betrayal. As she folded up into a growing pool of blood and mud, she was just seeing the rest of her kind coming into view threw a quickly narrowing Black tunnel of her vision. She had no idea that the ammunition used to end her life, had been built by a cylon plant and not of Colonial manufacture. In a since she had brought the instrument of her own death, within the hull of the ship she had arrived into this system with.

The lead most Centurion activated it's built in arm mounted automatic weapon as soon as it saw the human form drop to the mud. It fired into the general direction, of where the fire that had dropped the human form had coming from. It was that wild weapons fire, which had alerted the group in the makeshift school to the trouble unfolding outside. And that their enemy had come a calling on them, it was very rude of them not to have called ahead. The humans were going to make them pay for this rudeness shown to them today, and for every other day.

Saul and Roslin were not just charging to the sound of battle unprepared for what was happening out there. Saul and Roslin both had long leather like coats, which went down almost to the calves of their legs. Those long Dusters like coats had been supplied to them by the strange humans living on the other side of the planet. They were the only ones in the tent that had that level of armor protection. The rest of the people in the tent had some of the lighter Colonial type of body armor on, at best. Everyone with this type of protection knew it was more for physiological benefit, than any real practical protection. The idea was that this was to be a command post, not a combat out post, and the light weight armor would be enough to keep their minds off of being killed.

Even without the armored long coats, Saul and Laura have had the drive to be active in the defense or attacking the enemy of mankind. The two older people joined the younger defender outside the tent, as quick as their legs could carry them to the drums of war. They blew through the tent flap like sprinters threw a finish line tape. They only had to move about five feet to one side to make it to the defensive point that had been set up.

The three of them were now behind one of the obstacles that had been set up before the launching the attacks right under the cylon's noses. The two additions just had enough time to get set up behind the barrier. When the rest of the cylons made the last turn, and stepped over the now still blonde cylon and a single metal one in the mud lane. The three Centurions fallowing at the run, walked well ran into a wall of hand held weapons fire from the three humans. Each of the weapons the humans were using had been loaded only with counter cylon ammunitions. The three metal machines were cut down like ripe wheat before a reaper. The trio of Centurions was not even able to fire back at their attackers, before they were rendered into slightly used spare parts.

In the dark days at the start of this new war with the cylons, the humans had fought with whatever they could get their hands on. And a lot of those times, they only had civilian grade ammunition to defend themselves with against the massive cylon war-machine. Before this war, the most likely enemy that the Colonial Military forces in space and ground based police groups. Would have only been other armed humans. Not the metal protected self-aware machines that had showed up. All of the Colonial planners and Civilian Think Tanks had said that the patrolling military ships, would have bought them enough time. So that the rest of the fleet to mobilize to fight any attacks that the cylons might launch at them. It was just too bad that it did not happen that way in the real world.

This time the humans knew who they were going to be fighting against, and this time they were armed to counter the correct threat this time. Civilian grade rounds would take out an attack Centurion. That is if you hit it often enough, and or hit it the right places with those softer projectiles. Today these Centurions were hit with explosive loaded rounds, or the hard tipped armor piercing ones. That blew or forced their way through the hard outer layers of the Centurions and into the softer inner parts, of the attack machines. And unlike the run with humans that had left with Adama, always short ammunition. The hits were coming in one after another without a care for limited supply. Four more Centurions were put down in seconds, and were added to the other smoking wrecks in the mud. This led to a pause in the attack up the narrow mud lane. This would let the cylons use their superior numbers to their best advantage, for the next attack. At least that was what they were thinking it was going to let them do, anyway.

Roslin saw something, maybe it was movement out of the corner of her eye. She did not know what had drawn her attention, but she felt that she needed to know what was going on. She made to leave the cover, which had been set up before the launched attack without telling anyone. She had not even though, that what she was about to do, was worth giving the other two people a heads up. Saul saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, just as the older woman had left the protection of the metal and wood barrier seemingly out of the blue. Laura was not trained in how to move during combat, much less how to move during ground combat effectively. Those where two totally different beast to tame.

However Roslin has seen enough of the training of others, to at least be able to fake it…..more or less. If she had taken the training, instead of just observing a few practiced by novices being supervised by a single combat veteran. Then she would have known that she was not moving fast enough to make the run, without being spotted by the cylons. It was called a four second rush by the Colonial Military. If you could not make a given distance, in less than four seconds of all out sprinting? Then you had to make sure to have your buddies, giving you covering fire for another second or two of running. If you did not have or do this covering fire, you just did not do make the shift in locations. Laura Roslin was almost half way to some different cover, when a Centurion and a human form cylon picked up on her movement out of the protective cover. The pair brought their weapons up to fire at that movement, going left to right across there line of fire. It was not an easy shot to make, but this is one reason, why the different military's used automatic weapons. It increased one's chance of hitting moving targets.

Laura had wanted to get a better view of what was going on with the Cylons. Besides it was always a good idea to not, have all of your eggs in one basket when dealing with an attack by cylons. That way you did not lose all of them, when the cylon took control of the battle. The other bit of cover was not that far away, and had also been prepositioned days ago. It was supposed to be proof against most cylon light weapons. She was almost to the new cover, and noticed that she was already starting to suck air deep into her lungs from the effort of running. She had a stray thought, that maybe she was getting to old for this kind of thing. That line of thinking came to a sudden stop, when something hit her hard once, twice, and then a third time in quick succession. It was like someone was hitting her with rabbit punches, to her old body. The pain was a severe as it was unexpected, and she lost her footing in the slick mud. Before she knew it. She had fallen on to her stomach, flat on her face that was now buried in the horrible smelling mud.

As soon as her body had impacted into the muddy lane, a second line of pain stitched across her exposed back. This greeted her, as she settled deeper into the soft dark mud from the power of the bullet impacts on her back. The pain was hard to imagine and it brought tears to her eyes. She had talked to others who had been shot before. Both before and after, she had been there nonmilitary leader of her people. Laura found out that it was just as they had warned her about, and she knew that she had been hit by cylons weapons fire. But there was a big difference between knowing it would hurt, and then felling like a Raptor had just crashed landed on your back. That was after getting slammed in the chest and side by a runaway street car. Her world was a Battlestar load of pain coming from all over her body. She was trying to catch her breath, and nasty smell mud was her whole world for the near future.

Saul saw the whole event unfolding before his eyes, from behind the safety of his barrier. And it was like he was watching a disaster unfold, and it was in extreme slow motion. When Laure started to make the move to a different position, he instinctively knew she would not make it. Unlike her, he had a lot of training in that arena. And knew how far he could run in that magic window and the next cover, was outside that distance by some measure of strides. As his eyes tracked back from the cover, he thought Laure was heading to.

He saw the first rounds hit her in the sides and one arm or chest at almost the exactly the same second. He saw as she went down like a puppet with all of the strings cut and an invisible set of scissors. She might have lived through those hits, and he started to make a run himself to try to get her to safety. That was when a send line of strikes walked across her exposed back of her coat, and he could not move a muscle after those images were in his brain. He knew deep in his heart, that she was gone. So when the young woman had put her arm on him, to stop him from running into the kill zone. His mind made it so that he did not resist the slight pressure of her hand. Instead he rose from behind the cover, and pulled the under barrel trigger of his pistol. It hit the male human form cylon in the head with the first round, and it exploded like a water balloon in a vacuum chamber. Saul was dropping back behind the protective barrier, viper quick after seeing the results of his weapons fire on the cylon he had targeted. Saul could not help but feel a smile come to his lips at the after image of the now headless human form cylon. Laura might be gone, but he was going to make sure she did not die alone.

This started a full-fledged waterfall of exchanging weapons fire between the two remaining humans, and the remaining cylons. Noting of any importance was hitting, besides the side of the nearby grounded spaceships, but there were a lot of bullets flying between the two locations. Mostly the bullets were coming from the cylons side of the battle. They had the most automatic weapons, like the ones built into each of the remaining Centurions arms. But they also had the Colonial like battle rifles that the human forms were using and the Colonial woman fight beside Saul. They also had a lot more ammunition to use, than the humans they were firing at. Also they had not been living on a shoe string for the past few years. They felt perfectly fine with being overly prolific with their ammunition expenditures. It was too bad that they should have spent more time on the range, making sure there bullets went where they wanted them to and not where they were poorly aimed.

While Laure was still lying face down in the mud, she could pick up the change in the sound of the gunfire going on around her. She did not have the experience to understand what was happening, or the ability to project a mental image of what might be happening. All she knew was that she had not felt another hit, after the rake across her back. After what seemed like an hour, she slowly started rising her head slowly out of the soft mud until her eyes were just halfway clear of the mud. Laure could see the bullet strikes over her head, as they hit the grounded space ships not far from her prone body. She was still working on getting her breathing under control, and slowly turned her head to get a better idea of what was going on around her. She was hurting and her movements where very slow. She did not even know, if any of the cylons fire had made it through the Rift Earths made coat she was wearing. She had never felt that much pain and it not leave her bloody as the results. She would later never be able to tell anyone what was it that made her suddenly jump up, and started to run again. But something just said to her, that it was the right time to go. So she did with every bone in her body screaming at her not to move, she moved anyway.

It was nowhere near a graceful movement, as she made the mad dash to safety. It was more like a slap stick routine, mixed with some ambrosia over use, and fresh ice added into the mix for a little extra viewing "fun". She was just able to slide behind the protection wall, as another line of cylon weapons fires raised a line of little mud mushroom fountains near her moving legs. Laure rose to the top of the barrier, and fired back at the cylons. It seemed like the right thing to do. If only to let them know, that they had missed her again. It might have been just luck, but she succeeded in hitting one of the two remaining Centurions dead in the chest with repeated armor piercing rounds that had left her weapons barrel. Even as the fourth and fifth round stuck, she knew that she had dropped the metal menace in its tracks. As she dropped back behind the cover, her heart was pounding so hard. That she thought it was either coming out of her chest, or she was having a heart attack at the worst possible time. And in truth she was not a spring chicken, by any means.

Saul turned to one side and looked were the sound of additional weapons fire had come from, and were some of the cylon fire had went. To his surprise he was just in time to see Laure still firing back at the cylons, and not dead after at all. What he saw was that she was just covered in mud, from her hair line to her shoes. Saul gave a loud finger whistle to get the older woman's attention over the ear splitting crash of weapons fire. He had to use his outside voice for it to carry the distance, and over the combat noise. "Hey Laura! I thought you bought the Fraking farm, when you got hit the second time." He had a wicked grin on his old face. Then he flinched when the young woman he was fighting beside, was a little less aware of his shifted positions. And hot brass dropped on his bald head, from the weapons firing over the barrier.

Laure drop back behind the barrier as the cylons fired raged over her head again, some of the fire hitting the barrier and others hitting the ship behind her. She used the time to wave at the bold man and shouted back, after his ear splitting whistle rung the air. She had a half crazy grin on her face as she yelled, the pain in her chest forgotten for the moment in all of the excitement. "I will never doubt those Earthers again!" She yelled across the muddy little road. She looked down, and also patted the side of the coat where she thought that the first impacts had accorded at. She, after not seeing that any of the cylon bullets penetrated her thin coats, she opened it and looked inside of it. Laura was rewarded by not seeing any damage in the as new looking coat liner. She smiled. "What an amazing thing?" She said aloud, but it was not loud enough to carry the distance to Saul or to anyone else. Much less carry over the sounds of a raging gun battle going on around them.

She saw that Saul was still watching her and not trying to kill cylons. Laura knew that he wanted more information, and proof that she was okay. She held up her hand showing both sides of it, to show that it was not covered in blood. "See no blood. I'm fine!" This time she made sure that she said it laud enough, so that Saul could hear her over the repeated crash of gun fire. She could tell that he heard and saw the lack of blood on her hand. His eyes went wide at the jesters she was making.

Saul smiled back at her, and gave a hand sign that let her know that he had heard and more importantly that he understood her. He had been thinking, about how he would explain to Bill. That the woman he cared so much about, had died right in front of him. Now he did not have to do that, and he gave a quick prayer to the gods that he rarely prayed to. Starting with Poseidon/Neptune. This face slowly changed as his mind worked some of the implications of what he had just witnessed. He had not really believed, deep down. The reports that this thin coat was better protection from cylons weapon fire, than the full heavy and thick armor his Marines had been issued and used. "Well if these Frakers are so good. I had better test it fully, to make sure?" Laure could not hear what he was saying, but the look on his face was warning enough to her. The young woman hunched down next to the old Colonel, had heard what he had said. But she did not understand what the crazy Fraker kneeling beside her, might be up to. After all you were supposed to get wiser with age, weren't you?

The young woman rose to almost be fully standing and fired over the top of the barrier, and slowly put a couple of rounds down range. It was more to make sure the cylons were not going to try to rush the positions, than to hit one of the enemies to her front. She was waiting for the Colonel beside her to do the same. This is the way she, and the others with some military training, had been taught how it was done. When her support had not risen to help her, she folded up her knees and quickly dropped back down behind the barrier.

Instead Saul pulled some kind of cloth hat out of a large side pocket, and shook it into shape with a few quick motions. He put the strange floppy hat on his bald head with a quick flip of the hand, like he had practiced that maneuver a hundred times before today. She was transfixed as he pulled the floppy brim down to cover his ears. He pulled down the side of his face, with a few quick tugs along the edge of the odd looking head covering. He used a drawstring that was there just for that purpose to lock the new form of the head covering in place. Before she could ask him what the Frak he was doing. Saul snatched the rifle out of her hand that she had just reloaded, and rose fully from the mud, like the messenger of death sent by Hades himself. It now dawned on her what he was going to do, and was stunned. She was very slow to react to his unthinkable actions he was doing.

Saul was now exposed from the hips up to the top of his now covered bold head. The rest of his body was covered by the barrier between him and the cylons. He put the weapon snuggly into the pocket of his shoulder, just like he had been trained a long time ago to do. With his non-dominate hand on the guard that covered the soon to be very hot barrel. He drew down on the remaining cylons to his front. Laure was caught in the site of the single human standing exposed, as if daring the cylons to try to kill this one lone old defender.

After a heart beat Laure's own legs started to move on their own accord. She was just coming up to her own full height behind the barrier, and the younger woman near Saul rose also to stand beside the Colonel. Saul unloaded the remaining rounds in the magazine in the rifle at the stunned cylons. But before he put the last round down range from the rifle, he was joined by the two women in the deadly barrage with their own side arms. When it was over, and the firing had stopped, all of the cylons were down in the mud and not moving. And so was Saul Tigh. The last gasp of this attack had lasted only a few seconds.

The last standing Centurion had one of the big external mount weapons, and before it was put down into the mud by the combined firepower from the three Colonials. It had been able to fire a well-aimed burst at the oddly clothed human. It had hit center mass as its targeting systems had demanded it do. Saul was hit by the full burst from the heavy weapon, just below his ribcage into his much softer belly. That much impact force had an equal and opposite reaction when it stuck Saul. It is after all a law of physics. In other words, he went flying backwards about five feet on to his back in the cold soft mud. The two women waited to see if the coast was clear, before checking on the crazy fraker.

The younger woman was closer to the fallen Colonial commander, and she had faster reflexes. So she was the first one to reach laid out form of Saul. He was still on his back in the mud, and was still not moving so much as a finger. The young woman relaxed a little bit, after closing by about two steps. She was close enough now, that she could see a cloud rising from his face caused by his warm exhales of his breathing. Seeing that it was alive she vented a little Spleen on the dumb fraker. "Sir with all due respect, what the Frak did you think you were doing?" The tone she used would have gotten a strip taken off of her, even if it those words had come from Starbuck mouth instead of hers. But right at that second, she did not care. The Colonel was one of the people she was supposed to be protecting by being outside at the time of the attack. What go was it that she was his defender, and he would just exposed himself to danger like that.

Saul was looking up into the cloud filled sky, and was counting his bones one at a time. After he was sure that they were all there, and they were not broken. Unlike Laura, he had been shot a few times before. Luckily both times it had happened. He had been in full heavy body armor, and they "only" had been pirates packing civilian grade ammunition. What he had just been hit with, should have killed him. Even with the best body armor that the fleet could field before the cylons had come back. He already knew from past experience, that he was not bleeding from any of the impacts. As he was steering up at the sky, he realized that he was both alive and that he did not seem to have any broken bones. He came back to earth, and heard the young woman walking up to him threw the runny mud. He was in mental shock about what had just happened to him, and that he was alive.

Well, I better get off my Fraking ass. Who would have thought, that the gods have this type of a since of humor. He heard the young woman ask the question, and he should have snapped her head off for what she had said. But something else came to his mind. "Why is it when some starts a statement something like "With all due respect?" They really don't mean a word that they had just said." Before even the late arriving Roslin could say anything else, that they both might regret. Saul rolled onto one side, and tossed up his last two meals into the already reeking mud. It was added to the growing filth that was already in the mud. Most likely it would never even be notice by anyone walking through the area, even if they stepped boot right into it.

Roslin shook her head and looked at the younger women as the old man voided his stomach into mud at their feet She was just glad she had a strong stomach. The younger woman looked like she might be about to join Saul, because of the sound and smells he was making. "Will you help me get this dumb dagget back to the tent, before he gets himself killed?"

The two women reached down and each picked up an arm. They half carried, half dragged the only slightly protesting man back into the command tent. After carrying Saul threw the tent flap, and it closed behind them. With a quick nod exchanged between them, both women drop the arms they were carrying within a half a second of each other. This was so that Saul would hit the somewhat cleaner wooden floor of the tent with his softer but very sore belly. Sometimes a little pain would remind a male in the future, that they had done something very dumb. It might even stop or delay them from doing something like that again, maybe. And then again, maybe not. This was Saul Tigh we are talking about.

While Saul was still groaning on the floor, when the younger women was about to head back out to her assigned position in the mud. She stopped dead in her tracks, when Roslin called out to her. "Wait before you go?" When the other woman had stopped, and gave her a quizzical look. Roslin did not say more. She slowly took off the duster like armored coat, and passed it over to the younger woman.

They younger woman's eyes went wide, and she took a step back with both hands up and palms out. Roslin gave a sly smile and step closer with the coat still held out in one hand. "You might need this more than me." She pointed to the marks on the back and one side, with her off hand. "I don't know how good it will be now. But I think that it's still better than what you have on now for body armor." The woman had been wearing a patchwork of odds and ends of damage but recovered Light class Colonial armor, that she had been putting together herself. It was carp for protection, and she knew it. That had been one of the reason she had been placed where she was in the first place. There was less of a chance that she would be in the line of fire. That was the plan, anyway.

The younger woman turned red and was about to refuse the impressive coat again, but stopped when renewed leader explained why she wanted the other woman to have the long coat. "Look you can't do your Fraking job, if you get killed. This might give you enough time to cover our escape, next time the cylons come over to say hi. If they attacked once, there is a good possibility. That they will be back, and there will be more of them next time." Roslin used her foot to point to the still prostate Colonel on the mud covered wooden floor. "Just promise me that you won't try what Fraker Saul just did while you out there." Laura was now looking down at the man on the floor and shook her head from side to side slightly. "I don't know how, I would have explained it to Bill. That he was taken out by the cylons, only because he had been playing entertainment show hero or some Fraking silly thing like that." She looked back up to the younger woman with a level and don't Frak with me gaze. "You have a job to do. IT is to protect this command post. Now take the coat, grab some more ammunition, and please go back to your post."

The younger woman did not know what to say, so she just started to put on the long overcoat over her repaired Colonial police issue chest plate armor. That Colonial body armor had been the best protections for its weight know to her before the cylons sneak attack. It was very light weight and it offered protection from most of the weapons that a criminal might be able to get their hands on. That was until she saw what these Earther supplied coats, was now the best around protection for any given weight you could think of. Roslin helped her with the strange closer devices on the front, and then the younger woman was heading out the tent flap. She picked up a pair of extra magazines for the rifle that had been left at the defensive point. Then she was back to her position, as sole defender of the Colonial ground forces HQ. She could not have been more confident that she could do the job against all comers. She felt that she was ready, and even hoping that more cylons would come to try to take out the Colonial command center. She thought that she could take out any, and all that might come her way. The jury was still out if that was a good thing or not.

Roslin looked around at the rest of the crew in the tent. They had stopped working as they watched the interplay between the two women, and the lump of meat that was a still winded Saul Tigh. She ran her hands down her sides, then down the one arm that was sore, and then but both of her hands to touch the small of her back. After give a little stretch. She gave a wry smile to the group in the tent with her, which were looking for her to lead them. "Well that will wake you up, better than a cup of triple strength coffee in the morning." She was thinking a little levity would just what this situation needed, to get everyone back on track to do their jobs. Most of the decisions were being made out in the field, but they still needed to keep an eye on the big pitcher. If they lost that, then they could still lose this little uprising.

A brittle round of laughter started at one end of the group, and then quickly went around the tent/room. Saul now was pulling himself up off the floor without help, and arched his back while he pushed his belly out. But he quickly relaxed it when he put a supporting hand to the small of his back for some added support. He might not have any broken bones, but he was going to have some bruises that would be very spectacular looking in a few hours.

With his hands still in the small back, and now looking towards the top of the tent. His mouth started to work without his brain in support. "OHH Frak. Those things can sure stop the cylon stuff, but you know, it could be a little thicker to stop the energy transfer to the body. I wonder what those Earthers would take in trade for enough of that Fraking stuff to outfit all of our combat personnel. It would be worth every credit. All we would have to do is make sure they wore it over a thick padded coat or something like it." Saul's brain was now working. And even though he was still looking up at the roof of the tent, he was talking to Laura. And she was not the only one; he wanted those words to reach. And the quicker those few words were spread the better.

Roslin smiled she knew that, Colonel Tigh was already thinking about how to fight the next battle. Even before this one was done and in the books. She now understood that this trait was just typical for people like him and Bill. She did not know, was if it was genetic or there command training that was somehow caused this. "I don't know, but let's first make sure that we are alive after this to ask them face to face." She started to wag her finger at him, like a little school boy. "So no more of that hero Frak or I will tell Bill." It was not an empty threat, and she was betting that the rumors would make to Bill, before she could tell her side of the story.

Saul just smiled back at her, now that he was looked around the room and not the top of the tent. The others in the room had the same dumb smiles plastered all over their young faces. He was not the only one that needed to watch out, on doing that hero stuff. Later the story would leak out, no matter what the two of them wanted it to or not. It was too good of a story for it not to happen, and it would grow with each retelling. Soon it was about how the Ex-President of the Colonies, had run out to defend the HQ. She would do something like this with nothing but a winter overcoat on, and single pistol. She would be standing against the whole cylon army, all by herself. Things like that just happened with stories, even before the fall of their government to the cylons.

The laughter stopped when a voice came over one of the Earther supplied Radios. In a boomed voice that came out from the single volume settings, which the sets had been slapped together with. "Vampire, Vampire, mass Vampire launch from the two of the Basestars! Numbers growing steady, twenty birds out!" The radios messages were known to be safe, for now, from the cylon listening in. They were even safe to use without having to use many codes, and other devices. That had to be built in Colonial systems, so that they were safish to use. Now it looked like cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders were about to show up to the party.

Saul was not smiling now. This had been planned for, but that did not mean that it was good news for them to have received in the command tent. "Looks like the cylons called in reinforcements to our little game. I just hope too Frak, we are still alive when our birds make it to the game." A rumbling of agreement went around the one room tent school, at just below the audible level for human hearing. Saul and Laura knew that there was no way that the Colonials and Earthers could handle all of those Raiders and Heavy Raiders without air support of their own. The plan said that air support was going to be very limited. That is until Adama showed up, to play his part of this little bloody dance that had started today.

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Meanwhile out at the edge of the solar system. A lone Raptor sat like a hole in space waiting, and watching everything that was going on in this solar system. It had not been the same one to receive the message about the fourth Basestar leaving, and leaving only the remaining three cylon capital ships in this system. This was its replacement and Skulls and Kat had won the Triad game, to be the ones for this part of the great plan. There were almost two dozen Raptor teams that had wanted to support this part of the Adama's big plan. This pair had pulled every string within reach, called in every favor, border lined black mailed, and if she had to. Kat would have broken into the medic's office for the most powerful laxative they still had on hand. Kat was not above playing dirty pool, to get what she wanted. She would not kill or permanently hurt anyone, besides an opponent's ego, but whatever it took to win. And now she and her EO were in this system, after the alert had been given of the reduction of the number of cylon Basestars. It was just how the Oldman had briefed everyone, how his plan was going to pan out. Kat had not and could not, believe that the cylons would send one of their ships away. But it just like Adama's crystal ball had said, word had come back to the fleet in hiding with the news. Then Kat and Skulls had to do a quick pre-flight there craft to come here. They were keeping a close eye on the remaining Basestars.

The pair had the three Basestars locked in on their passive sensors with constantly updated information on any, and all threats in this system. This was exactly what a Raptor had been designed to do, and this was the first time the humans had able leverage this design fully. There small but powerful systems, were vacuuming up every bit of data that might be useful for the organics in the cockpit of the craft. They were good bit of distance away from the one habitual planet in the system, and not in their usual hiding spot at the systems edge. The three Basestars were not all that far from her, and the planet. It would take about thirty to forty minutes for the cylons Raiders to flying in real space, to support the planet at their normal power setting. Those small craft could have micro jumped closer to the planet that looked to be their target, and gotten there a lot faster than taking the long way there. But for the last few months, Cylon command had seemed to not want to waste the jump fuel to do small trips like that. This was information that Bill Adama had to have, before he could start his part of a very complicated plan. Most of which this pair did not know anything about.

On Skull's many multi-color screens at his station as the EO officer, he could see a cloud of smaller icons forming up around each of the larger Basestars. Then with a noticeable signal, they all start to move closer to the planet, at close to their maximum speed of the cylon small craft in a massive wave of cylon made death. After the Raiders and Heavy Raiders started moving in attack formation, the Basestars started to fallow them going towards the cloud covered planet. The Basestars were much slower than any other warship in known space. And it took time for them to show any movement on Skull's screens from this distance. Once those ships did start to show that they were in movement, and the direction of that course change. It was then time for the next step. Kat and Skulls had their pre-planned orders, and went about them like the professionals that they were.

Skulls flipped a switch on his console, to protect all of the recorded data they had picked up so far on this mission. Then he let the pilot know what he was seeing. "Kat, I'm showing movement on all three primary targets. They are following the little fry at their listed top speed. Our Jump drive, is warmed up and it is spinning normally." He did not need to see or even hear, that Kat was going through her own check list and preparations as fast but as safely as she could.

Kat quickly rechecked her instruments twice more. She might have been the one that had found this planet, but she knew that it had been an accident and not due to her piloting skills. Today they had zero room for one of those types of accidents, not this time. When she had finisher her per-jump checks she started talking into her mic. "Okay Skull's Jump us back to the barn." If the Oldman's plans were going to work, it was going to have to go like clockwork, or the death toll was going to be truly massive. What was left of the human race could not afford a high casualty mission right now, no matter what the stakes were.

Skulls started hitting buttons as quick as his gloved hands could move, but double checked his work before he was ready for the next step. Once ready, and all of his systems told him it was safe. He took a deep breath, and snugged his crash straps around him. He sent a quick prayer to the gods. "We are jumping in 6…..5…..4…..3…2…JUMP!" Skulls pushed a big blue back lighted button on his console, that would start a chain reaction in a small device mounted not far from the back of his flight chair. Deep in the craft the smallest human made installer engine drank more fuel, and then it did his job. Just like it was supposed to do.

The little 50 ton space craft winked out of existence in this solar system, then out of another around a new born star, and then back into a new area of space. The little craft was still inside the nebula, but not around near any star when the little craft winked back into existence the last jump. Kat was already hitting buttons in her cockpit area, to let the warships know that she was a friend, just in case. She had to do that before opening a broad band transmission channel to the flagship for both data and voice. "This is Raptor 534. I say Caprica, I say again Caprica." She flipped off the active transmitter, and waited for what would or might happen next. All of the data the Raptor had taken in was being broadcast to the massive warship. She would only be contacted, if something was wrong. For five sold minutes she was praying to the gods while she waited. Nothing at first looked to be happing, then as they watched they could tell something was happening. Then all of the sudden the biggest of the ships near the newly arrived Raptor, winked out view. And then the oldest, and most battle worn of the pair of warships was gone only a few heartbeat later.

Kat activated her crafts active DRADIS system, and let it sweep the local area for a few minutes. She wanted to make sure that it was clear. She had no idea why she was doing this, but you did what the Admiral ordered. Especially after this latest wild Fraking plan had broken exactly how he said it would. "Okay Skulls we are clear. Take us back. You know the way, right?" This mission was so time sensitive, that the parent warships for this little craft could not wait for it to land back on then. That is before jumping off to fight the latest battle of this war. If everything went well, they would be able to land on one of the two Battlestars. That is once the major fighting was completed, and if there were any human crewed warships left alive to land on. If not there was a long shot of a Plan Z. Kat started to shake at that fleeting thought, of some of the details that made up that particular plan. She wondered again how many people knew those same details for the particular plan.

Skulls checked his systems with a practiced eyes and fingers. "Kat, this jump will put us down to just under half a tank on jump juice. Jumping in …..4…..3…2…JUMP!" He did not have to wait for the pilot to reply about understanding what their current fuel state was. It was just part of the check list, so he let the pilot know before hitting the big blue button again. One of the standalone computers started running the preset programs again. That would take them on a trip measured in interstellar distances, all with in a blink of an eye. This trip would be shorter without any stops along the way to the now very hot war zone.

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Hope you liked this chapter. it was my first fighting scene to write.


	27. Chapter 27 ch 18 modifed Exodus

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and I have used them for this story.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

Thank you Sable Cold for the heads on using the wrong name. The person I had in my head was Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson, it was just too bad my finger typed Kat. Also did I add enough #### to made breaks in the story to help with the wall of text? It sucks that made a dashed line did not work, learning curve and all of that. If you have suggestions let me know and thinks for reading.

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 **Chapter 18 Modified Operation Exodus**

Racetrack and Skulls were gone from that oddly glowing area of space between stars again were back at the hidden systems. But this time when Racetrack and Skulls went back to their "normal" hiding spot. When they settled into the right location, a large but not very bright red light filled the cabin. The two lengthy jump routs to make the round trip in such a short amount of time, had pushed the jump drives. They had already heated up high enough to cause a second stage warring indicator to light up on Skulls station after the last jump. They could jump again quickly, but it would almost grantee the jump drive would kill itself in the process. They might or they might not make it the location they wanted to on that last jump before the jump drive packed it in.

The pair would have to sit in space for some time, until it cooled down enough to safely be used again. It's cold that deep in space, but the vacuum of space is a bad conductor of heat. It would have cooled down faster if they were planet side, but then again. That would be hotter in other ways, beside an overheating jump engine. While they were waiting out there on the edge of space. They would be able to observe the whole battle space. As well as acting as trip wire warning outpost. That is if the cylons tried to do something funny, and bring in some additional friends on the sly. That would be very rude of them to do such a thing. Then again they were cylons, so it paid to be on guard for the unexpected at all times. They also would be recording all the data that there passive systems were picking up. It would mainly be used as a data points for after the missions' final review, and for anyone one who wanted to review this battle from a historic prospective of some kind.

Racetrack hit a few more buttons around her cockpit area, and flip a final switch. When she was done she turned in her seat, so that she could see her crew-mate, sitting behind her, more easily. She gave him a weak smile, threw her opened helmet visor. "So Skulls, did you at least remember to bring the cards this time?"

Skulls looked at the female pilot and tilted his head to his right side. His eyes got very narrow, until they were just two small slits in his face. He was not smiling, and with a quick hand movement. He flipped up his own visor, breaking the airtight seal. In combat you should not have opened your visors, but it was a pain to keep it down and locked. Especially while you were trying to talk like a normal people. And if you did not want you craft to record what you were saying on the data recorders connected to the transmitter built into their helmets. "You said that you would bring them. Don't tell me you forgot them…again?"

Racetrack did a sniff and batted her long eyes lashes at her EO. "But I'm the pilot. It's not my job to do anything, but fly this crate. Besides, I know I told you to bring them. All the way back to when we first started planning to take this mission out." The tone of her voice was just so, and she knew it would hit the mark that she wanted.

Skulls turned red under his pressure helmet and his eye grew larger, and now were framed by the metal of the helmet. "YOU DID NOT! YOUR NOT BLAMING ME THIS TIME!" Deep insides Skulls soul, he now knew exactly how they were going to pass the time. And it was not going to be by playing any of the immense number of different card games they knew. After all they had plenty of air in the craft for a good bit of time, even without the need of emergency recyclers being powered up.

Well that is one way to pass the time deep in space with little to do. Each crew-member that flew in the Raptors was different. And it took time with a lot of trial and errors to set up a good working team, which could get the best out of one of those small craft. Sometimes it was not a good different; sometimes it just was what it was, and a lot of things were glossed over. That is as long as they made a good team, to complete the required missions. At least this time, the only ones that had to hear them bickering, were only the two warm bodies in the craft. The dynamic of this Raptor team had driven other crews away, and in truth. None of the other teams wanted to work with either of them. Any of the other crew could find any way they could to get out of working with them, shot of shooting someone. They would however break their own bones to do so. The sad part was that Racetrack and Skulls did not know this, it was a well-kept secret.

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Just before Racetrack and Skull's had arrived back into this system. The ordered waves of cylon small craft were making the final maneuvers necessary for the proper orbital insertion of the planet. They were to add there combat power to the battles raging on over almost half of this planets land area. Behind that massive wave of Raiders and Heavy Raiders supplied by the three Basestar, came those same three Basestars. They were moving at their best in normal space speed, and were also closing on the planet. They would be there to provide and needed very heavy fire support to the ground forces. The cylons were not going have a repeat of the attack on the decoy transmitter. The ground fighting cylons were going to have all of the firepower that they might need, as close to hand as they could get.

The first indication of an issue with this deployment, was when a giant million ton alligator headed metal beast winked into existence behind the three moving cylon warships. Even before the cybernetics' on the enemy ships, could start to come up and idea with what to do to. A second warship, that was only slightly smaller, but of the same general type was there also amongst them. About the only thing that the command crews, and Hybrids on those ships could think about in those first few seconds. Was that the Colonial Navy had come to fight today. The first mass assault that the Colonial Navy had always trained for, but had never been able to execute. Was launched into the aft sides, of the three unsuspecting cylon warships in a mad orgy of destruction. The Adama's might have had a lot on their minds while they were having to deal with Baltar, and his bipolar policy. But they had not skimped on the gun crew drilling time on both of those ship. It was not like they had anything other to do, while they were hiding from the cylons.

Halo was setting in his Viper as the energy wave of Jump wave washed over, making his whole body felling like a pen cushion with too many pins shoved into it. "Weill this is going to be interesting." He said into to data recording system absent mindedly, as he sat strapped into his fleet footed craft. At least this modification of the plan. Did not have him being thrown out a Viper tunnel, as the Battlestar was falling through the hot and thickening air over the planet. Then he was auto launched into space with the rest of the Vipers on the Colonial Battlestar Galactica. All before he could say, or think anything else but not losing his breakfast. After that, then he was too busy to think. Much less talk about much of anything, that did not have anything to do with his continued living or killing cylons.

Both of the massive Colonial ships were firing as fast as the gunners, loaders and magazines could operate, it would take a few seconds for there to be any control to that Colonial fire. When you surprised a cylon in combat. You did not let up on them, till they had stopped moving. Barrel wear be damned, along with the cost of replacing your missile magazine. The two massive ships quickly, at least for them it was quickly, made some fine adjustments to their course as soon as the targets had been confirmed with the plotted data in there command sections. They started to fire there massive fixed and turret mounted heavy projectile weapons, almost a half a heartbeat faster. Than they had, in any of the drills they had endured over the last few months. The wave of destruction was leaving the two human warships, even before the first Vipers had cleared the sides of the massive ships. The Bucket, as the old Battlestar Galactica was called, was older and did not have the massive bow guns that were fitted on the much newer Pegasus. In short the old girl, was short in the raw firepower column.

Between that and having an almost complete armor skin, the Beast would be taking on two of the three remaining Basestars all by herself. The Bucket was not a slouch in combat. But the Beast was just better equipped to fight outnumbered in a stand up, toe to toe bashing contest. That had been expected, when they had designed her class of warship all of those years ago. As was the old Colonial Military tradition, the Admiral did not have to move his flag from the older and weaker warship to the newest one. And Bill Adama would not move his flag. At least not while he was breathing, and the old girl had two bits of metal fly at least somewhat close together in space. This was chance for the Pegasus to win back some of the lost honor. That Honor that had been stained while Admiral Cain had flown her lights on her. And while those lights flew the great warship, had done inhuman things to the helpless humans. The ones that she had found in need of Colonial Military protection, and she had not given.

The Admiral was watching the plot board being updated, and the slide bar that showed how many Vipers were left to launch on both Battlestars The last number was falling like a waterfall, as more Vipers were shot out of there tubes into the not so loving embrace of hard vacuum. From behind him a voice called out from one of the mid-level consoles. "Sir, we have good strikes on Target C." The cylon baseships were in a standard triangle attack formation with Target A at the point leading the charge to planetary orbit. Target C was at one of the aft points and closest to the Bucket. The data that Racetrack and Skulls had given him, had help plot the jump so close to the enemy. He had a good idea of the attack formation the cylons would use. He just needed a course and speed, so that he could place his ships in the right location to ambush them while they were still in motion.

Adama did not look up from the table, as his brain took in the information, and he gave orders to his crew. "Keep firing standard ammunition on Target C. Any reports on the other targets? Any reports coming from the planet?" He was working out modification to the list of plans safely locked in his head, as he rattled off the questions. The more information he had, the better he could fight his small fleet.

From behind the Admiral another younger voice came back. "Pegasus is splitting their fire onto both remaining Targets. They are getting hits with the nose cannons on Target A. And the dorsal turrets are starting to get some lighter, but good hits on Target B. It's too early to know, if we are doing much damage below their armor belts, Sir. We are not detecting any additional Raider or Heavy Raider launches coming from any of the three targets, they do not have a CAP in place. We have contact with the New Caprica ground station, and they have launched their ground attacks on schedule. They wanted to make sure to tell me, that they have not requested any Viper support yet." There was a pause before the voice came back, a little clearer than before taking a huge gulp of air to keep talking. "Sir, we have not been able to make direct contact the Colonel or the President. They appear to be in a different location, from the ground station we are talking with. Would you like them to send for them, for direct communication?" The statement about not needing Viper support carried a disbelieving tone from the young voice. The last question was flat, and not assuming that the Admiral would not want to talk to the XO or the President to better fight this battle.

Adama was now walking slowly around the large center mounted table looking at the constantly updating command table. One part of his mind and eyes kept going to look where his friend and XO should have been standing near the same table, but was absent. The looks were so subtle that not one of the other people in the room notice them. He was the very picture of a powerful man. He was in control of everything around him, both in this room, the two warships, and the whole fraking solar system. Bill let out a little bit of air from his lungs before addressing the question. "No, it's their plan. Let them do their jobs, while we do ours. If they need us, they will let us know." What they did not hear, was the end of his statement. It was spoken out loud, but very softly and it did not carry past the hip high and back lit table he was looking at. "At least I hope like frak they will." Bill shoved aside that line of thinking, so that he could focus on the near term events.

A second voice came from Felix's old position. "Raiders have stopped advancing on the planet. Looks like a mass recall. I think they might have panicked, and called them all back to mommy. I can't make out units or any other formations, which match any of our manuals. It looks more like a mad rush to a new attack vector. They should settle out into units again, after they have some time. They now will be in range of our Vipers in ten minutes give or take the amount of time our Vipers spend on turbo." The last bit had a tone that the Vipers would be pushing as hard as they could. That was just what Vipers pilots like to do, wasn't? They all wanted to close the distance to knife fighting range, and then let loose with either there twin or triple wing mounted KEW's on the Cylons.

Adama did not look up from the light table. He did not need to, and made eye contact with the voice that had used that tone. One that Felix would have known better to use, in a time like this. However if that person had that idea, it was a point he needed to address. He needed to stop that idea from spreading like wild fire, and risking more lives than was absolutely necessary. "Pass that to the CAG on the Beast. Tell her, to make sure all of her jocks stick to the plan. I don't want to have to switch to Flak rounds any earlier, than I have planned for." For only one of the few times in a public setting, he used the slang name for the Pegasus. It had the desired effect on getting the rest of the bridge crew to relax a little, and focus in on their jobs. That change he created, did not last long.

Another new voice was added to the growing volume in the CIC of the old warship. "Missile separation Target C, Missile separation Target B, mass missile separation from all Basestars. They are not going towards the planet, I repeat. None of them are headed planet side. They are forming into two groups. Bandit Group 1 is going after Pegasus. Bandit Group 2 is from Targets B and C, and they are coming at us." The voice hit a very high pitch, at the end of his information flow. The stress level in the CIC started rising again. Like a Viper coming off the landing field, and breaking for high orbit.

Adama smiled on both the inside and outside. That was a bad move, on splitting up the cylon attacking anti-ship missiles. They should have tried to take out the larger Battlestar first with all of their firepower in one massive wave. They could have also decided that going after me first was the better idea, thought the elder Adama. It they could take me out of the game. That means, that they think, that they will have a better chance against us down the road. Dumb move of cylon the splitting up the fire, it only gave them the worst of all worlds. Now have to use their bad move to maximum effect. Bill was now jumping for joy. When he had first set this plan up. He had split his fire on the hopes that the Cylons would do the same thing, just like they had just done. "Have all guns go to missile suppression Flak mode, please. Leave Target C to the Raptors, for now. Sign out if you detect any nuks in that wave." Adama was very smooth with his delivery, to his crew. He had fought this battle, in his own mind a thousand different times and a hundred different ways. Now all he had to do was make sure he won the battle, just like he had mentally war-gamed it.

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Along the top of the massive Battlestar. Twin turrets finished firing their loads of high explosive and Armor piercing rounds, which were in the short reloading trays for their weapons at their assigned target. Then they would turn to different angles, and use the tracking information coming from the command center and started to fire again. As these new huge rounds went out the Colonial made long gun tubes, a little burst of data would be sent to each shell just before it left the end of the barrel. It would tell the huge flat nosed weapons, when it was time for them to go boom. It was only a few seconds delay. Before all of the heavy weapons that were left on the massive ship, were again firing as fast as they could. It was dangerous to have these old weapons firing like this. Cook offs were known to happen, if only because both the weapons and ammunition were old, and did not react to excessive amounts of heat that well. Bill Adama, thought that it was worth the risk for now, as long as he and the gun crews kept a sharp eye on the temps.

Besides it they did not stop the growing wave of missiles coming at them? They were all going to die anyway. What did it mater to those gun crews, if they died from a cooking off Colonial made shell, or a cylon built missile strike? So each gun crew on the old girl had a choice of weather to die by a cook off, or die from a missile strike. No one would argue that the choices did not suck, but it was what they had today. So they kept up the highest rate of fire they could, and ignored the warning lights on their systems. All the while, the old twin turrets fired again and again. Ever watchful on the approaching missiles, and the soft red glow of their weapons barrels.

The massive metal projectiles fired by the Battlestars coasted through space, with only the speed that they had gained from the cannon bores that fired them into cold space. They were moving very fast, and that was why they were called Kinetic Energy Weapons or KEWs. They were traveling way faster, than most things in space that were not listed as an energy state or wave in the science books. And when they reached a predetermined distance, which each one had been given by the computers for each ship's CIC. In a blink of an eye the lethal rain started too exploded in a preplan patter of fire, light and bits of flying metal. It was filling the area with an expanding clouds of thin, sharp, fast, and hard metal. That were now was moving even faster, than when the shells had first left the Battlestars cannons muzzles.

When enemy missile flew through the expanding area of metal rain. They would start to very quickly take damage to the outer skins of those missiles. At first, it would start on their hard outer shell, and it would keep working on that layer until it had ware threw point. The metal cloud would keep doing its job, until something important broke on the missile. When that happened the missile would come apart in space, and that was soon adding its own parts into thickening the death cloud. Or it would just making the large cylon built missile worthless as a weapon. Once it had gotten to the area of space, which they had been told to go. The cloud would grow thicker, and denser as the cylon missiles added there bodied to the cloud flak, and as well as from the additional shells coming from both Battlestars.

This cloud Adama had order to be made, was not meant to stop all of the incoming missiles. It would just be the first layer of the Battlestars defenses. It was only to start the process of reducing the attacking missile wave's effective numbers. The second layer was made up of a special group of Vipers, whose sole task today was missile interception. They would do this with the limited amount of Lighting-Javelin Mk III anti-missiles missiles that Adama had been able to have hand built one at a time. When those missiles were expended, then the Vipers use there built in cannons to help defend the twin Colonial Warships as best they could.

The next layer of counter anti-warship missiles was made up of special fitted out Raptor small craft. They were all loaded down with all of the jammers, decoys, and small shorter ranged counter missiles, which the 50 ton craft could carry. The last layer of active defense was the over five hundred counter missile KEWs that lined both side of the great old ship. What made it through those layers of fire the Colonials had put out? Still had to blast its way through a thick layers of armor plate, which was designed to withstand those types of weapons. It was a dance, and Adama was a master of the dance moves, and more importantly the counter moves for this song. Now it was only a question, of if the cylons knew them better than he did. Or if they had invented some new moves, that he did not know about yet.

A second and third wave of missiles separated from the Baseships, as launchers went into reload cycles. Or they were pulled more ammunition from the deep in the Baseship's cavernous holds. The first missiles in the ready magazines were the normal armed ship killers that had been around even before the time of the First Cylon War. Even cylons did not like carrying nuclear warheads that close to the surface of their ships. Like were they might interact badly with enemy weapons. You just never knew when something bad, might have sneaked in near you. All without your notice then doing it. It would take them shooting weapons, or in other words. It was going to take some time for all of the ready ammunition, to be used up. Then the real ship killers could be sent into space mixed in with one that were filled with 3000 pound explosive in each missile body. The only time that the ready ammunition had held the nuclear tip weapons in the cylons tubes. Had been the surprise attack on the human's fleet and home worlds. Even then it had made even most of the Number One's nervous to have done something like that.

After its success, the cylons had reverted back to the peace time method of ammunition handling. It was well known to be safer for both cylon and their warships. The second wave of attacking missiles would only have four or five nuclear warheads hidden amongst them, at best. The third wave would have a few more of the real ship killers. The fourth wave would have had about half of the missiles flying through space between warships armed with the ship killing nuclear warheads. The rest of the missiles were there to act as a sacrificial escorts, while on the way to the targeted human ship. Those escorts still would hurt any warship that got in there way. But it would take many more of them, to do the assigned job of killing something as large and hard to kill as a Colonial made Battlestar. Even an older Battlestar like the Galactica, could still take multiple nuclear strikes. That is before it would fall out of the battle line, when she was in top form. So it would take a lot more of the non-nuclear armed strikes to do the same job. It would be a death of a thousand cuts, but it still was a death in the end. It was always just a matter of time, and how deep your missile magazine was.

Around the missile spewing Basestar called Target C, suddenly six small Colonial craft winked into normal space unnoticed by the cylons death dealing machine. That is till they each launched one small nuclear tipped missile. And along with that one missile they launched a pair of escorting jammers missiles from each of the six Raptors. The larger Basestar, knew those little craft were there, the second when the Jammers went active on those four inch in diameter fast moving missiles. At that range, as soon as the Anti-ship weapons were armed after the Jammers light off, the powerful capital ship based DADIS system picked them up. But the screaming jammers drew the fire just as they had been designed to do. The fleet little craft were able to stabilized there systems and launch, before the Basestars started to launch any anti fighter missiles at first. It still took time for the jump engines to be ready again. That little bit of time was all that was needed, to make it so that four of the two man craft would never make it back home again. But they had completed their mission. Target C Basestar started to rip itself apart as three ten kiloton nuclear weapons detonated against the physical surface of the almost alive ship. They went nuclear within a handful of seconds of each other. The destruction of Target C would not stop the missiles the cylon ship had already launched. This was because once the missiles left the tubes, they relied on the systems built into each of the flying weapon to find the target its command had wanted it to destroy. The term would be called fire and forget missile. There is one thing that both Colonials and Cylons knew, that was that cylon missile could find almost anything they wanted after their seeking heads went active.

It would take some time, but the fallow on missile waves had just been reduced in available attack numbers by 1/3rd. Only time would tell, if it this was enough to have an effect on the battle currently going on in the beautiful nebula. That was now marred by the Gods of war unleashed within it. When the speed of light systems picked up the destruction of the Basestar, cheers rose from both bridges of the human crewed warships. The same would happen with the rest of the crews, when that information was passed to them via the well-known and often command hated grapevine. Very few knew that even with the death of all of those cylons, the battle was not done. The ones that did know, were just happy that they had taken out one of the cylon capital ships. To date the old warship had taken out more cylons Baseships than the rest of the Colonial fleet combined.

When the third wave of missiles hit the Colonial flak cloud, and started to lose members to the hard and fast moving metal shards. The DRADIS systems on both Battlestars pick up the subtle difference in the makeup of still growing debris. At the speed of light, it alerted its human operations of the change and what it might mean. "Radio-logical warning. We have confirmed nukes inbound on the missile group A3 and C3. Missile launched from Targets A and B are now confirmed to be in two groups and not one wave. I am labeling them as A4 and B4, as planned. The numbers are smaller in each wave, maybe they have lost some of the launcher due to battle damage?"

Now it was time from the close ranged missile defense station to start to earn their food ration. Cylon had always loved using a massive number of missile and Raiders in their attacks against any defended target. To counter this method of attack, the next layer of defense that the Colonial military had worked out, had the total workload had been split up. That way one person was not get over loaded with all of that death coming at them. "We are going to have leakers." Just has he finished letting the CIC know, that they had not done a complete job as the close in weapons. There were three sharp thuds that were felt threw the souls of their boot covered feet. As the force of the conventional warheads, that the leaking cylon missiles had been carrying. All detonated and sent shock-waves rippling through the old warship. Those shock-waves were fallowed only a split second later by the sound wave that the moving metal made when it was under distress. The ears of the crew, it sound like a woman shrieking in pain.

All of the members of the CIC took in the information, and the person at the DC station at one end of the command center let everyone know the results of those shock-waves. "Damage Report! We have two hits on the Starboard Hangar pod, and one strike on the topside frame Number 45. All lights are green. No hull breaches detected at this time." This was the shouted report from the very well trained, but painful too young Damage control station operator. The old Battlestar did not break stride as the fireballs rolled down her flanks that were soon joined by a fine dusting of metal fragments that now trailed from the old warhorses hide. She was not out of the battle yet, it was just more of a kiss from the cylons across the battle from them.

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On the Battlestar Pegasus, the newest of the pair of warships. She showed that those upgrades that made her so different than her older traveling complain. That was because not one missile made it to test the armor plate protecting the great Beast, from the first wave of cylon missiles. However, not one of the Colonial ships were out of danger yet. These early attacking enemy missiles were the easiest targets of all to kill. The next two waves were going to be just as big. And the third wave, they knew, had the real killers hidden amongst them as they raced to meet the last two Colonial warships spotting defiant fire at them.

On the largest surviving Battlestar, the CAG was looking at a screen. And then looked up at the younger and still fat, even if he had lost some dozens of pounds in weight over the last months, Lee Adama. The CAG had always thought, that the only reason that Lee had gotten the command of Pegasus. Was because of who is father was, and not because he had any of the needed skill of a real Battlestar commander would have. That had started to change when he cylons had shown back up. She, like everyone else, had thought they were safe just by hiding in this nebula. Lee Adama had been one of the few that had been vocal, saying that this was a false hope and dangerous. The CAG was a big enough person to accept that she had been wrong the whole time. And that Lee Adama had been right, all along. After some deep soul searching and a few healthy shots of Ambrosia. The CAG now believed that Lee was right where he needed to be, for the betterment of the human race. It was not a soul deep change, and sometimes the little evil voice would say bad things about her commander. But it was a quietish voice, so far today. "Apollo, looks like they are going to split up the Raider forces, after all. DARDIS is showing about four squadrons are now heading back towards the planet. I would call it 160 attack craft of all kinds that are heading back towards the planet."

The younger Adama looked at the table as the information was updated on it and he bit his lower lip. "Good, but that still leaves over a thousand of the little Frakers for us to take care of. The more they wanted to split-up of their forces, the better for us to defeat them in detail." He looked over at the CAG and made eye contact, but did not raise his head much from looking down at the back lit table. It was a look, which he had unknowingly picked up from his father not long after taking command of this ship. "Those are still long odds CAG."

The CAG and the ship's Captain were about the same age, but the CAG had never wanted the job of Battlestar commander. And with so few warships around, at least only the few that were still under the command of a human. She never would be a combat ships commander, unless someone died. Or somehow they found an abandoned ship or three out in this part of uncharted space. "Yes, sir but eleven to one, will beat a dozen plus to one on any day in my book. Anyway we can bring that a bit close to a more even with the odds?" This was his way of asking, if they could move to the next phase of the plan now.

Apollo gave a small little smile; he knew exactly what his CAG wanted to do, and was thinking that it was just about when his farther had said it would happen. "Yes I think it is about time. We can't have the Bucket showing us up, with having a Basestar kill, and we don't have one to match her. What will be said at the bar?"

The Colonial military had devoted lots of time in war-gaming, about how to take on and win against multiple enemy ships. What they found out was that at first it was a good idea to split your fire, between two or three cylon ships. This let you damage more, but lighter damage to them all instead of more damage to a single ship at a time. The damage would limit the total number of missile launcher, counter missile/counter viper launchers, and bays to launch Raiders out of. But at some point, you had to the remove a heavy enemy warships from your local battle space. That was why they did not just give out commands to Battlestars to just anyone with a well-known last name. You had to know when it was time to shift your game plan, and put every bit of firepower you could on just one of your targets.

Lee looked off toward on direction from his command table. "Guns, shift all weapons to Target B. When it's out of my sky, you can shift everything back to Target A. Don't wait on me to say something, just do it. Engines, bring up the speed up according to Exodus 4A. Send a message to the Admiral that we are going for Phase Two at this time." Apollo watched, without looking at any one person. As the command staff when about the tasks he had given them, like a well-oiled machine or the highly trained crew that they were. It looked like all of those hours they had to endure of drills, were starting to pay off today. Now it was only a matter of time, to see if he was right or that some of his crew was right instead. Lee knew that more than a few of this crew still thought that the only reason he was in command, was because of who is father was. And not because of his skill, or what his mind brought to the table. That was a huge burdened for anyone to have to carry, hidden under their skin. Late at night in the quite times with his wife. He would tell her, that he did not know which side was right one on that subject. They all would know, one way or the other this day. He would be a Battlestar commander or he would be the punch line of a very bad joke.

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While the Raiders and Heavy Raiders were closing on the small wave of Vipers. The enemy craft were so focused on the human crewed small craft to their front. That they did not notice a dozen Raptors, make a short hop from the outer edge of the solar system. They had been sitting and waiting for this moment to arise and without the need for transmitted orders. They jumped right into the now slowly closing open gap, between the two forces of cylon light attack craft. Each of the little craft held a dozen of the small Lighting-Javelin B passive self-guiding anti-Raider missiles. The 144 launched missiles had no problem targeting and seeking out the massively hot, and over stressed engines of the aft sides of the Raiders. Now those super-hot engines that were now in the front aspect of the very fast moving Colonial made weapons. With the Raptors showing up in the aft aspect of the Raiders, they exploited the DRADIS blind spot provided by the heat and energy bloom of their engines. The Raptors only activated the passive seeker heads on the missiles. Then all they had to do was select on button, thereby released the self-guiding sharks, to do their deadly work. This one battle would use up almost all of those types of missiles, that the Colonials had left in stock. It would total deplete what they had on hand from before the cylon sneak attack, and what they could use of their limited building capability to hand make while in hiding. They still had a little less than a hundred missile in stock between the two warships. But those were the ones that had failed in one way or the other testing, before they were loaded on the Raptors. If they lived through this battle, those malfunctioning weapons would be the seed corn for future weapons needed to defend the fleet. They could slowly be fixed, when new spare parts were made. And maybe they would even be able to build more using these as templates. But again, only if the humans lived passed today.

Not all of the carefully horded missiles, made a kill on the mix of cylon craft that they were chasing. The laws of Murphy always have a say in combat, but over 95% of those Colonial missiles did found targets at the end of their stern chase. And all of those targets were not going to be firing at any Vipers or any other Colonial, ever again. Now the 120 Vipers of the combined force launched from the two Battlestars, would only face nine hundred or so cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders. Those were not the best odds, to be facing in combat. But those odds were already starting to swing into the humans favor slowly, but surely.

The second wave of Cylon anti-ship missiles had made it through the active layers of the Battlestars defenses. The number of survivors that made it through the flak field were fewer in number than the first wave, due to the thicker flak field they had to fly threw to reach their targets. The Galactica took another missile on her exposed lightly armored Hanger bay that had been hit twice already during this battle. As the ship rumbled from another large and fast piece of cylon produced metal hitting her side, and then the impact shock was augmented by a large explosive warhead. Soon the command center was about to find out how bad it was. It had not been a nuclear warhead, but that did not mean that it was a small or harmless warhead either. It would not take many hits like that one, before the old warship would start showing her age. Just like back on Earth when an old fish let blood into the water, the sharks would soon come to take care of the oldster. Today those sharks were called cylons, and their teeth were something to be feared by everything that had a heartbeat.

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"Damage Report. Close in Defense weapons mount 256, 257, 255 are all destroyed Sir." The operator was reading more of the reports, as fast as they came from an office on the other side of the ship from CIC. But they were trained not to fill the air with useless information. If command wanted to know every detail of a given report. They could access the information on the main plotting board at their fingertips. The reporter's job was only to give the highlights and notify the room of a change. "Weapons mount 258, 254 and 253 all are reporting damaged, and not functioning at this time. Repair crews are working on them, or on the way to see what they can do. They don't know if they are repairable or not. They will need some time to check out the weapons, before they can fire again without jamming the feed system to the ammunition magazine."

There was another rumble deep in the ship that sound, and felt somehow different that the other impacts to ship had endured today. Another wave of heavy missiles where still on the way, but they should not be there yet. It was a sign to the CIC and the ship's Master, that something else had broken deep within the ship. Something that might have been useful unit just now, had somehow broken and was not useful to the human crew for who knew how long. "Close in Weapons ammo locker vented to space. Damage to Frame 24, Frame 25, and on the Starboard Hangar pod! The Hangar is open and venting into space. A fire is contained to the locker for now, but it's burning near the main fuel supply lines to the Hangar!" A fire on a spaceship was a scary event, a fire near the highly volatile fuel that the both the Raptors and Vipers used? Well that was the stuff of nightmares, training videos, and some types of entertainment shows. It short? It was a very bad thing.

Bill Adama was looking at the damage control readout and pulled up more detail data for this report on his command board, and something clicked in his mind. The cylons were trying to take out his landing bays, and it seemed like they wanted to start with that one first. "Helm role us 180 degrees to port. Now! I want to give them something else to shoot on for a while. I want that fire completely out, and not just contained. I want it gone, before it can get a chance to spread any farther. Send the backup fire control teams to help them out."

The massive ship was just starting to shift as its Master had commanded it to. When the third wave of missiles streaked in on the old Battlestar. The cylon missiles were smart, the smartest ever known to have been built in this part of the galaxy. They had learned where the Flak cloud was, and any and all thin spots that the cloud had. They also were able to work out how the battlestar's electronic and physical counter measures, and were working against them. In short, more cylon missiles made it through the different layers of defense, before the human operators could change them up again. In the end four missiles survived long enough, to reach the old ship and vent themselves against her old and thin hide with their furry.

From the Close in Defense station a frantic voice called out, as loud as he could. The warning that he knew none of them could prevent from become a physical form. "Four Missiles inbound for the Starboard Hangar Pod. Radio-logic warning close in! Some of them are nukes!" There was nothing any human, or even cylon on the ship could do now. The missiles were in the safer space that had once been covered by the now blasted apart close in weapons turrets of the battlestar. The four minions of death were now in a small, but vital blind spot in the weapons coverage of the Battlestar. It the ship had not started to move so radically, maybe the other dorsal or ventral weapons might have been able to get a viable firing solution on those cylon weapons. This would be the subject of many debates by anyone who had seen or lived through the great space battle.

The older Adama was quick as a snake, and his hand had been striking the "Brace for impact" warning button. Before most parts of his mind knew, that his arm was moving. One part of his brain had already figured out what was going to happen. And it was trying to give as much advance notice as it could to the members of his ship that had not been in the CIC to hear the warning.

The three seconds warning saved hundreds of people from death, or worse injuries than what they did received. That was at least for the crew-members, which were not right at the contact point of the hell weapons that were closing on them. The four missiles did not strike at once or at the same point on the kilometer long ship. They were spaced out by about half a second between each of the heavy strikes. The first hit was from a fifty kiloton weapon that had been built just after the end of the first cylon-human war decades ago. Those weapons were going to be pulled out of the cylon inventory, but they were still worthwhile weapons. And cylons like to keep any weapon that was still useful. It ripped the armor almost completely off the Hangar pod, and hit almost at the very forward tip of the tube shaped hangar bay of the battlestar.

The second missile hit midway down the same hangar bay, almost right on top of the massive support and retraction beams that connected the Hangar pod to the main body of the Battlestar. This weapon was a brand new warhead, which was a massive one hundred kiloton class anti-battlestar nuclear weapon. The hundreds of meters long hangar bay was cut in half like a hot knife through butter by the nuclear blast and heat. Then the shock waves bent and twisted the two ends of the few hundred meter long pod up, and away from each other. The once proud Hangar Pod that had launched untold numbers of combat craft to defend the human race. Now looked like a battle scared metal smile on a popular emoji. The massive blast was not done, as it then pushed the two huge and massive parts of a Hangar bay away from the side of the old warship with its remaining potential energy of the hell weapon.

The last two missiles were "Only" carrying conventional high explosive warheads in their bodies. One hit the aft most massive strut that normally would have pulled the bays closer to the hull for interstellar jumping field to cover completely. The strut was massive but it had been weakened by the battle damages already, so the aft most of the two struts broke after being struck by the explosive hammer of the cylon weapon. The part of the hangar bay, which was still attached to the end of the strut. It was now fully separated from the old battlestar, and it started drifted off into space joining the forward half of the same hangar pod. That was already free floating away from the craft, which had carried it for so many years and thousands of light years of distance. The last missile hit the armor plate between the massive strut and the main hull of the old warship. This one missile did not do anymore damage, except to a few armor plates that were nearest the explosion of the cylon warhead. Of all of the missiles that had his so far. This one had done the least amount of damage, to the crew and ship when the other pair that had made contact. That section of armor that it did hit. Just happened that it was one of the few areas, which had not been touched by resource recover teams. When the Battlestar had been made ready, for her new life as a museum piece.

What was going on in the heavily wounded Battlestar, will never be fully known exactly. For now, all that mattered. Was that she was out of the battle, for now. The bad part, was that there was another wave of cylon missiles. And it was still on the way and night now, and she was an out of control death ship waiting for the final curtain call of her long career. It was the smallest wave of all of the cylon launched missile waves. But it had the highest number of nuclear warheads intermixed with the normal explosive anti-ship warheads. It Adama did not regain control of his ship in the next three minutes, there would not be a Battlestar Galactica anymore or ever again. The flash of the last missile striking the great old Battlestar had only just faded away, when a bright flash engulfed a second cylon Basestar. Now there was only one Basestar left, and it had already taken moderate damage already from a small nuclear warhead anti-ship missile along with an all of those KEW's round strikes. It was almost the end of the game, and she was getting ready to sing. The question was how many humans would be left hear her song of victory.

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The younger Adama was watching at what might be the death of his father from the command section of his own ship, and was almost powerless to stop the events unfolding before his eyes. When you were a commander of a warship the size and capabilities of a Battlestar, it could give you a bit of a god complex. Just as Admiral Cain about that little subject. Apollo might have looked like he was a frozen statue of man, but he was really working the situation out in his head about what to do next as the second wave of missiles started to rock his father's command. None of the plans that he had come up with, were that great. He had to do something, and he was truly his father's son. Even if he did not have all the years of experience, that the older Adama had to draw on. As a Viper jock, his first thought was to send over all the Vipers that he could to help the flagship. He also knew on the instinctive level, that something like that would not work out the way he needed or wanted it to work out. The Vipers were already over worked, just keeping the cylon small craft out of the capital warship's battle. So he went with the less of bad, of the plans that had come to mind in literally a few blinks of his eyes.

Before he could speak, the glow of the second cylon nuclear warhead had been seen detonating on the Flagship, and part of Lee's heart sunk to his toes. "Guns! Put all of the ventral guns in flak mode now! I want them firing into all of those missiles. Bring the Flagship under our guns! All Missiles fire! Helm, bring us to 214 up 37. Bow guns fire as you bare on that Basestar. Max firing rate, on all weapons. Frak the heat and pass the ammunition!" The orders were rapid fire, and clear as a bell. The very picture of how a Battlestar commander should have given the orders. They were given to the command group on the ship. And the recordings would show, that they were all given very quickly off the mark. They seemed to take forever to the man that was giving them out. And he watched his staff jump to put his orders into actions.

The Missile launch controller had been anticipating the command, ever since they joined the battle today. He was more than ready for those orders to be issued out. This was there last hold card for the humans, and they had hopped not to use them. But the person that was the control for those weapons wanted to fire them off. By the time that Captain Adama had the word Missile out of his mouth. The control had already pushed a protected red button. And a dozen thick metal missile silo doors on the ships top, dorsal side, popped open to space on the command that had moved at the speed of light. By the time the word "fire" had been finished leaving Lee Adama's lips. The missiles over powered drive engines were staring their short firing sequence. The coil launch assistance devices built into the silos, were fractions of a second from throwing the missiles out to do their own mission of destruction. It was a waterfall of destruction flying away from the Mercury class battlestar in long pillars of smoke and fire. There was a reason that the cylons had thought of using a computer backdoor, to shut down the combat computers on ships of this class. They were the main line defense of the Colonies of Kobal against the threat of a cylon attack. In a few words. They were cylons killing nightmares, of the first order. This was the first time that these cylons would see one of these monsters in combat in all of her deadly glory. The down side, was that they were the target of all that death. And the cylons were fresh out of room in the resurrection areas, for any more cylons souls.

They cylons "knew" that the Colonials only had so much military "stuff" when they left the home worlds. And most of that had been recovered after their limit time at the Ragnar anchorage, and luckily a Number Two cylons had been there long enough to inventory most of it. They knew almost to the item what Bill Adama had been able to recover, before he led the rest of the civilian fleet away into uncharted space. They also knew that the Battlestars had not used any capital missiles nuclear tipped or otherwise in a while. Or even use that many of the smaller anti raider missiles that Colonial doctrine demanded that they use. So when this battle started, and the Colonial did not start off the battle with the heavy hammers that the capital anti-ships missiles represented. Then they had assumed, that Adama did not have any more to use against them today. Missiles where very had to maintain in operational statues. And the bigger the missile was, the harder it was to keep the ready to launch even with a full support base.

One of the basic laws that were known in combat, was that it was very hard to counter both attacking missiles and incoming cannon rounds. This was even true for cylons and there more powerful computer systems. So when the humans had launched this attack, the Basestars had quickly shifted all of their limit defensive resources. They were to focus only on the incoming heavy cannon rounds launched from both of the Battlestars. That meant that when the Battlestar Pegues launched its surprised missiles barrage. Not one of the massive missiles was intercepted by counter fire coming from the targeted Basestar. They might have lived, if they had held back as little as three percent of their defensive power. Just on the off chance that the Colonials had a stock of anti-ship missiles after all. Assuming something will kill you very fast, in a war with humans. That should have been remembered by the cylons after the First War.

While the missiles were just starting in on tracking toward their cylon targets, the massive twin turrets on the Battlestar swung into a very complex computer control dance. It did not take long from them to be pointed were the command had been given to be. And they opened fire, and they fired again and again. The fourth wave of missiles had the most detailed information about the Flak barrier between them and the assigned target. They had no problem plotting course, to make the small little killers through the safest parts of the Flak cloud that was in their way. All of that hard won data had come by the losses of their brother missiles. This should have given this last wave of death the advantage, until the humans changed something and all of that data would become almost useless. Not only did the cylons know where the thin spots were in the Flak cloud. So did the humans who had been keep a very close eye on what they had made and it was not just the human Flagship keeping an eye on her outer layer of protection. The more powerful Beast had been keeping an eye out on it all so.

The additions made to the Galactica's protective flak cloud by the bigger Battlestar, soon turned all of that information and code into so much wasted effort. The oncoming wave of cylons missiles was devastated as the planed holes were filled by exploding Colonial shells. But some of the missile still got threw, no matter what the Mercury class could do to help the Flagship. Some always would got threw that layer of defense, and they sped towards there hapless out of control target that was the old Battlestar Galactica.

The layer of Raptors that had been detailed for missile interception for the Pegasus saw what had happened to their flagship. In one of the rare events of an action looking like it was a part of a bigger plan. Without orders, they redeployed in mass to help the stricken flag ship. This thinned out the layers of defense for the newer Battlestar, and that had not been planned for. So the missiles that made it through the Pegasus own flak cloud, had one less layer to weather on their way to their target. The group of Raptors micro jumped all over the general area of space that their out of control Flagship was in. Normally the Raptors would only launch two missiles each, into each incoming attacking wave of cylon missiles to help thin out the enemy missiles. This slow launch rate helped with the targeting of the fast little killers in two waves of cylon missiles. That was because the Raptors really wanted to take out the ones with the big bang in them first, and they could concentrate on looking for them in the follow on attacking waves. It also meant that they could stay in the battle threw more missile waves, as they husband there limited weapons supply of counter missiles. And thicken up the decoys launched from the parent warships. The decoys were something that only the newer Battlestar was capable of, and even her supplies of them were very limited.

This time all bets were now off. Those crews and ships were not only protecting their homes, but the flagship of the whole human race. So whenever the Raptor systems said that it was tracking something in the missile wave. The pilot or EO would just launch whatever they had left on their hard points, into the enemy missiles coming towards them. Unfortunately not all of the Raptor lived long enough to launch there missiles.

None of the Raptors had cleared the jump with command before they went into action. In the mad rush, some of the Raptors jump into the on rushing wave of battlestar launched Flak rounds or into the missile wave itself by accident. Sometimes you really should not rushed your jump calculation. Not many of the Raptors were hit. But when something so small, gets hit with something so big, moving so fast, and was so hard. It does not leave much behind, which is bigger than your thumbnail when they do make unexpected contact. The only silver lining to this cloud of miss fortune. Was that the bodies and parts of the now destroyed Raptors, took out on average of a dozen other cylon missiles with their own debris field. That might at first look like a favorable exchange rate, but the cylons could make capital anti-ship missiles, in the shiploads in less than a few months. The humans could not replace the crews of those craft in the same length of time. And they would not be able to replace the Raptors themselves. That is unless, they found more of the little craft just lying around somewhere. Or maybe someone could talk the cylons, into given them a few dozen more somehow.

That did not matter to the rest of the Raptor crews, and they would not even think about those losses until sometime later. They were already jumping back to their assigned locations after ripple firing there weapons into the attacking cylon weapons. They had tried to protect one of the last Battlestars known to exist, the Flagship. Along with some of the last humans they knew about, so whatever the cost was. They were going to be happy paying it, even later, when they were being ripped a new one by their chain of command for the mass act of lunacy. They would remember the half hidden smiles of those officers doing the yelling. Even they knew that they would have done the same thing, if they would have been able to.

This impulsive action taken by the Raptor crews bought precious time for the Galactica. The ship had continued the roll that it had been commanded to do. And it now just kept rolling over and over again. Plus with an added nose over tail motion caused by the exploding cylon warheads. The command deck was fighting with everything it had, to regained control over all of the great ships systems. But artificial gravity was still working, anything else was still up in the air. The Helm was trying to get the massive old ship back under control, but that was going to take some time. Any ship that was 1.4 kilometers long, and massed a millions of tons. That tended to be a little hard to manage, when they went into an out of control condition. Much less being in an out of control condition, while you were still combat.

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The person manning the Close in Weapons station on the Galactica was strapped with a five point harness. And was still working his station, like there was nothing out of the ordinary. No matter what his inner ear was trying to tell him. It did not matter what way the deck was going. They had a job to do, to protect the rest of the ship and all who were within her hull. They were trying not to think about all those people in the Hangar bay that just had died. They were lucky, in that the Starboard Hangar Pod was still more of a Museum than a normal warship. Compared to the manning of the Port Hangar Pod. It only had very few people manning combat systems, fighting the fire, and damage control parties after the launch tubes had been emptied at the start of the battle. With the migration of civilian personnel to other ships, and dirt side. It was no longer a hotel in space. But the old battlestar had lost a lot of automatic weapons, all of those working launch tubes, and a skeleton crew that called that pod home. Soon there would be more images on the wall of morning that had grown in the center of the ship.

The CWS operators were keeping an eye on the thinner but still closing missile wave. Then one and then the others in his group noticed that the attack angles were finally getting better, as the great ship rolls continued. Now their weapons on the other side of the ship were coming into play. All of those weapons were fresh, cold, and ready for their turn at combating the cylons. The head of the CWS team manual drove all the gun gimbals to the maximum depression. Then all he could do was watch as the ships movement slowly brought the fresh weapons to bare on the cylon missiles. When his systems told him, that the aliment was still 0.5 degrees off of his target. He manually activated all of the weapons and ordered them to go to the maximum rate of fire. Some might have called this early weapons fire a waste of ammunition, barrel wear, and heat. But that just meant that when the remaining missiles in the wave was at the right angle, the light cannon rounds were already there, and not still in flight on the way to the threats. The last missile exploded only ten feet off the hull, and luckily it was only a conventional warhead in that remaining weapon. It is not a well-known fact, to most nonmilitary personnel. But shock waves don't propagate all that well in space. The only damage and threat, was done by some of the higher speed fragments of the missiles body itself. That was when they started impacting the hard armor plate, which was still on the top of the old warship.

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Today had started off just like any other day from Cylon point of view. When John had left this system, he had appointed what most other human lines thought of as his second in command. Not surprising to anyone, human or cylon. He was another Number One, but he went by the name Leo that he had chosen for himself. He preferred Leopold, but after many months of making corrections to the other cylon lines, including his own. He was forced to use the shorter version of the name, he had chosen to be identified by. He was just like most other Number Ones, but Leo had a lot shorter flash to bang on his temper than was normal for even his line. He also was mean, just because he like to mean. And was notorious about taking out his anger, on anyone who was close at hand.

As soon as John and his flagship Basestar had left the system. Leo had ordered all three Basestars to shift into a more normal cylon attack formation to consolidate all of the cylon firepower. The diamond or chevron shape had at the point or nose, a capital ship pointed in the direction of the most likely threat. Leo had decided that it was not a possible attack from Adama, and his battle wrecked ships, but the humans on the planet who were the most likely threat. To hedge his bets, or cover his butt if things did not worked out that way. He had the whole fleet not in close orbit over the planet, like he would have preferred. His ships was about three AU's out from it, and farther from the dim star. This was because some of the other lines were upset about the changes he had made, so this was as a just in case thing if Adama did show back up. He did not understand that the deployment he had made, only gave him the worst of both worlds. The only way he would learn about this, was after the battle had started. Even when this was pointed out by a few of the other cylons. Leo had ignored them, as being only jealous of his position as the fleet commander.

All those thoughts had died in Leo's head. The second that reports had started to come in, about all of the attacks going on the planet. By the time that the full extent, or at lease close to the full extent, was realized Leo was furious. He was in a full on rage fit that showed no signs of stopping before he had a heart attack. How dare the humans attack his people? In his furry, he had made his first mistake of the day. He order a full deck clearing Emergency Alpha launch of all of the small craft under his command. This command, sent every Cylon space craft into space as fast as absolutely possible. The order was meant and written, to only to be used in extreme emergencies. You know like being surprised at close range by a Battlestar combat group, or an equally dangerous threat that was not supposed to exist anymore.

This was meant, so that if you wanted to get all of your combat projection firepower off you capital ship? You could, before the capital ship was blown out of space. This order did had some downsides. One is that even cylons had to practices this set of complicated maneuvers often, for it to work out any and all coordination issues that might crop up. Leo and John had not done this type of training after the opening days of this new war. So when all of the cylons Raiders and Heavy Raiders went out the launch tubes under his orders. They were not in any kind of formation or unit like there programing demanded that they should be in. They were simply ordered off the ship, and to go towards the planet to support the ground troops. That was the limit of those orders, which were given by anyone on the backup cylon flagship. As the massive gaggle, was made up of every space worthy cylon made small craft the three Basestars had available. When the gaggle of Raiders and Heavy Raisers started to move toward the Planet. The three great warships stared moving toward the planet, fallowing the wave of smaller craft at a more leisurely pace. Leo had thought that this was the end of the directions that needed to be given, they were cylons after all. Soon he was going to find out exactly how wrong he had been about that assumption.

Leo was watching the massive flood of cylon craft heading toward the planet from the main control room of the Basestar. He was so weak in command and military skills. That he did not realized that the disorganize mass of small craft he was fallowing, was a sign of trouble and poor command coordination. When a warning shout went through the command center projected by an unknown voice. The warning was only a heartbeat or two before the shock-waves of heavy and hard impacts on the outer hull rung the cylon control center like a bell from Hades.

Leo was slammed into the wet interface with some force, but not enough to take him off of his feet by the impact of the shaking deck. "What the Frak was that!?

A Number Two still standing on the other side of the tank gave a replay, as his hands flew through the liquid information interface device. "We have two Colonial Battlestar. They just appeared aft of us, at close range. I am activating the close in defensive weapons." While he was talking his arms, hands and fingers were moving and commands flowed of the command center. "They are lunching Vipers and Raptors, in coming heavy KEWs are starting to be intercepted." As if on cue the ship shock again from a heavy Colonial shell strike, but it was nothing compared to that first round of impacts. "We will not be getting them all, outer hull is still taking damage. No missiles have been launched."

Leo's face now was blood red, as he reviewed the data for himself and issued a fleet wide emergency command. He had not asked any question before he made the major fleet re deployment, after all he was the fleet commander. The Two's head nearest him shot up fast. It might have come off of his shoulders, if he was only a full blooded human when it read those orders. "Recall all Raiders and Heavy Raiders? Are you sure you want to do that, Leo. The interface was already showing the mass confusion caused by that order as it was received, and then acted on by the small craft.

As the wave of over a thousand cylon craft tried to comply with the new command, they were thrown into even more disarray. So much so, that the Number Two knew the problem, but he was smart enough not to point it out to Leo. Quickly he came up with a different way, to address the bad orders Leo had just given. "Leo, you know not all of those Raiders have missile much less anti-ship missiles in their launchers?"

The One looked at the Two for several long second. Then his eyes went wide, and the red on his face turned to purple. "Why the Frak not!" Leo was so angry he verbalized the question, instead of accessing the data for himself in the interface

The Two locked into eye contact with the One, and he did not back down one inch this time. "Because you order an Emergency Alpha launch. That means anything that was space worthy was launched, as is, so that it could get out into space as quick as possible. They only took the time to get them out of there bays. Just as the order was meant to do."

Leo accessed the data without breaking eye contact with the Two, and found what he was looking for. "Okay have all the Raiders and Heavy Raiders with missiles loads turn back to the planet, and support our people there. All other craft are to attack the Battlestars. The human Vipers will still be overwhelmed by our craft. Then they can start taking out the hangar bays and weapon mounts on the human ships while we provide the heavy fire support."

Leo and the rest of the flagship command crew tried to fight off the Colonials. First they diverted all of their reserve anti-missile close in weapons, to counter the heavy Colonial shells. That were coming in at a higher rate, than any of the prewar projection said was possible. Then the first Basestar exploded by nuclear weapons launched by a group of sneaking Raptors. That somehow had not been noticed until they launched their deadly little missiles. Not one word at the command center was said, as the cylon fleet just lost one third of their total combat power. The battle between the Vipers and the cylon small craft was not handled in this room, but in the auxiliary command some distance away. This main room had all they could handle with just managing the fight between two sets of capital ships. They were losing more and more close in defense cannons, missile tubes, Raider launching tubes and bays. And soon the armor plate that made up the outer hull of the ships. Had started to leave a growing field of diamond like dust of sparkling bio metal in, around, and behind them as they moved through local space.

When another wave of cylon missiles slipped through the human defense, and stuck the side of the old battlestar. They all "saw" as her massive hangar pod was almost ripped off in two peace by the cylon made nuclear fire. All of the human form cylons in the fleet command center looked up from what they were doing, and yelled for joy at the replaying images of the ship. That had grown into the symbol of Nemesis for the entire cylon race. With the lack of crew training being done by the cylon CIC, and the joy of seeing massive damage done to the old battlestar that had caused so many problems for them. They whole command staff lost focus, at exactly the wrong time.

Leo was the only member in the group that seeing the image still playing out once, was good enough for him. Just as Leo put his hands back down in the interface to access some of the information feeds again. He had the shock of his life. Threw those feeds, he saw the great Mercury class battlestar explode into action like a spared horse. He watched slaked jawed as the anti-ship missiles. The ones that John and the other Ones had assured every other cylon, that the Colonials did not have any more of. All of a sudden, started to flash out of their ship carried silos. Even a Mercury class Battlestar did not have a quarter of the missile launchers that a cylon Capital ship carried. That did not meant that they were not deadly. Even as the first missiles were still leaving there armored silos. The great Battlestar's cannon fire increased by almost forty percent as all of the guns went into their true maximum rate of fire for the first time in the ships history.

Leo could not move as he saw the wave of death coming. Something drew his attention to one side of the data streams. He now noticed that the battlestar Pegasus was change course, and her massive Basestar killing forward fix mounted cannons were coming on a direct line with his ship. For the very first time in the life that Leo could remember, the Number One called Leopold knew he was going to die.

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The missiles coming out of the Pegasus armored silos might have launched first, but they were not the first human weapons to find their targets. The Heavy cannons, which the new Battlestar carried were almost four times as faster that the fastest large anti Basestar missiles ever made. The heavy and medium class KEW's were tearing deep into the hull of the massive starfish shaped ships with a vengeance of a billion dead human lost souls. Those cannon shells still lost some of their number, to the impress amount of close in weapons a ship of her class carried. But today those cannon rounds were not meant to take out the cylon Basestars. That task belong to another Colonial made weapon that was about to come into play.

Colonial and Cylon made heavy anti-ship missiles were basically the same, even after all of these years apart. One area that was different, were in the seeker heads. Cylons sensors were just hands down better, than any human had the unfortunate pleasure to meet in combat. However the Colonial made weapons also had a different set of attack modes to choose from. Colonial high command had always known that when the cylons came back, the Colonial fleet would be out numbered… again. One of the ways to counter the expected massive cylon number of warship, was to give a little surprise in the missiles that were going to be shot at them.

If the Colonial commander had enough time to plan, in some detail, with good reconnaissance. He could have the missiles seeking systems adjusted somewhat. This adjustment would keep the seeking death machine on target that the launching ship had given it. But what if the target that the launching battlestar had directed it to attack was destroy before it got there? What would happen to all those expensive flying ship killers, in the fallow on wave of attackers? If the fleet commander had enough time, the missiles could be programed to shift their seeker heads up to 45 degrees off of their current flight path. And then they could start looking for a list of targets in its small, and very limited brain. The trick was, knowing what side of the four, which it could look, that you wanted the seeker to shift to after its target had been blasted.

That was where all the planning, and more than a bit of luck was required. If the missile looked the "wrong" way, it would never find a target. Then it would keeping right on flying, until it ran out of fuel and self-destructed about 33 hours after fuel burn out. Admiral William Adama had lots of time to plan this attack, and he had spent a lot of brain power looking and re-looking the problem every way he knew how. With all of the information his Raptors were sending him, right up to the last second before he launched his attack. He had a very good idea how to plan it, so that his missile would give him the most bang for the limited bucks he had in those silos.

The first Basestar that the Battlestar Pegasus killed was the cylon flag ship, even as the human flagship was still shedding her starboard hangar pod. The cylons had been looking at, only stopping the KEW rounds that were headed there way. And not the slower and more fragile missile, that were now engage them. The first four human made missile struck the "top" of the cylon warship with its three long arms. The first three were "only" filled with high explosives, and they ripped deeper into the cylon bio-hull that had been weaken by all of those Colonial made Heavy KEWs strikes. The four and last missile in that group was a 50 kiloton Colonial made nuclear weapon. It had just happened to have fallowed one of the conventional missiles. When it had made its way into hole in the armor, that the high explosive detonated three deck deep into the cylon made ship. The last conventional explosive missile should have taken out the whole ship, when its warhead went into unfriendly mode. It had exploded right next to the secondary fuel tank, for the massive ship. If it that fuel tank had been full of fuel? The whole cylon ship would have done up like a super-sized fireworks. But it did not, that is until the nuclear bomb went into unfriendly mode. While the fire ball from the third missile was still spreading down many of the connecting access ways on the now exposed decks. Leo died with his jaw still swing in the wind, as the fireball, shock-wave, and radiation worked their way through the ship at the speed of cylon thoughts.

Now that the primary target was gone, and the Beast was still working on bring the third and final Basestar under fire from her cannons. Also the second and third wave of missiles she had launched started looking for a new home. The second wave of Colonial missiles were too close to the primary target, when there seekers gimbaled at the maximum rate to get to the 45 degrees offset it had been programed to do. The last Basestar was just out of there field of view, and the quadruplets of missile would continue on their original course for the next 33 hours. After that time the internal clock would activate the self-destruct commands, and the missiles would be small bubbles of debris. That command would be given within two minutes of each other ending any potential threat.

The third wave of Colonial missiles was able to find a new target, and shifted course to intercept the last enemy capital warship in this system. Just as the cylon Flagship was meeting its end, the third and last Basestar was able to finally get its close in weapons systems set up to counter some of the attacking Colonial KEW and anti-ship missiles heading towards it. The fourth and fifth waves of Colonial missiles started to lose missiles to the cylon fire. At least until a number of inbound KEW thinned the counter fire down somewhat. The third wave had been so close to the original target that when they change course. That they were attacking the last cylon ship from a complete different angle than the rest of Pegasus weapons had been attacking from. This was the first time that the cylons had seen this mode of attack from the human made weapons. And they were taken completely by surprise, by this new tactic.

The quadruplets of missile came charge out of the dark of space, racing over the crater marred hull of the last cylon capital ship in system. Two high explosive warheads and two fifty kiloton warhead exploded in the junction area, of the two halves of the animal like starship. All within a few heartbeats of each other. It was a massive wave a fire, destruction, and radiation covering the center of the great warship. Each of the six arms that made up the bulk of the Basestar went into different orbits around a central point that had been the command center of the warship. All three cylon capital ships had been destroyed, and not one cylon would be able to download into a new body that would have added to the cylon firepower on intelligence gathering ablates. The nearest resurrection ship was many parsecs too far away, even if they had known to expect the wave of data that had been sent out from this section of space. They still would have only been able to save a single percent of the cylons that were lost in this one battle. The battle for the control of this hidden system was over, and the cylons had lost. Now it was only a matter of time for the cylons to figure it out on their own. And to know how many humans they would kill. Before they realized that they had lost this latest battle between them, and the humans.

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The Galactica was saved for the time being. The cost to save her old hull, had been a thinner defensive screen for the Pegasus. The larger ship took five missiles hits, but "only" two of them were tipped with nuclear weapons. The heavier and totally complete armor belt, took the twin hundred kiloton weapons hits with only armor and some weapons destroyed, for all of their released destructive energy. For all of that damage done to both of the human ships. All three of the Basestars now were nothing more than expanding balls of gas, metal, and the odd bit of organic material. Apollo looked at the mission clock mounted high and in the center of the room, which made up the CIC for the massive Battlestar. As he took in the strange information, part of his brain went into "refusal" mode as it tried to work out the meaning of what he was seeing.

"There is no way that his has only been going on for seventeen minutes." He said it loud enough that the whole command crew did hear him. Stress was like that, some times. When he heard the snickering from some of the closer station. He knew he had spoken aloud, and he could feel a little hot blood rushing to his ears. He chose the option of trying to cover it somewhat instead of pulling a Colonel Tigh. "Any Report on the Bucket? What are the counts of Vipers and Cylons?" Lee knew that this was only one part of the dance, and it was not over just yet.

An unknown person manning the nearby communication station was head down at her work station. She was hiding a smile that had come to her face at hearing what Captain Adama had said aloud and she knew by accident. "Nothing yet from the Flagship, Sir. I'm trying to make contact with them, but I don't want to overload them at this time." It was a whinny statement, and most people in the room were waiting for the boom to fall on her. This was a well-known pet peeve that had turned up in both of the Adamas.

The younger Adama nodded, but he did not slam the over stressed operator for both of her statement, and lack of focus. That might come up later, if they had time. Lee hides a smile, because he also knew that the other in the CIC were waiting for him to drop the boom on her. "Let them do their jobs. They don't need you hovering over their shoulders, asking what is going on every two minutes." He said to himself, but in his command voice he address the CIC. "Helm put us on course to support the Vipers. CAG update the Vipers on our plans for Flak patter Beta Three. And tell them to stay out of the Fraking way, or they are going to be only so much more flak bits." He said the last part with a smile on his face, to lighten the mood some. He also knew that the Viper jock would not listen to a word he had just ordered. He had been a good Viper jock for a long time after all, and knew how they minds worked while in combat and in training. But now the command boots were on the other feet now, and he was having to help managed them in combat. It was a lot like herding cats or politico's, without the use of shocking devices, food, or money.

The Viper vs Raider and Heavy Raider battle, was over whelming and impossible to manage in any way. That could have been effective for both sides. Other than in a general way, but all CAG's and squadrons leaders learned how do that or find a new job, like wing wiper or something along those lines. The wave of human craft was a mix of very old Viper MK IIs, but most of the feet was made up of the newer MK VII's. That was thanks to the Pegasus with her larger combat load of newer Vipers, and the nice little production line for the things buried deep within her heavily armored hull.

The primary mission was for the Vipers in this plan, was to keep the cylon fighter craft out of the early phases of the battle between the Battlestars and the Basestars. The Secondary mission was that they were there to keep as many of the enemy craft away from the planet's surface. Both of these tasks, were to say the least unconventional for them to complete. In plain terms, they had to do both tasks. All the while, outnumbered about 120 to 950, some people would have called those impossible odds to go against. It was, but all of those Viper Jocks knew. That they only had to do that for a little while and each one had a mental countdown clock in their heads.

And now the great Battlestar Pegasus was on the way to support her Vipers, now that the Basestars were now no long a problem. Well, maybe other than being to navigation around this system. Now her job would be to distract as many of the cylon small craft, as she could. As long as she could still function as a warship afterwards. She would act like a flame for the cylons moths to come to. It was just unfortunate that these moths also had stingers, lots of little stingers. The more moths, she could draw to her? Also meant less that the Viper had to deal with at one time. Besides a Mercury class Battlestar had more armor plate than any Viper ever built. One bit of information that the all of the surviving Vipers could report to their CAG, was that the enemy craft did not seem to have any missiles left. This information was passed along, but Lee remembered how his father's plan had suckered the cylons into believing the same thing about the two reaming Battlestars.

Those long odds, but that was what the Viper and there pilots was designed and crews trained to handle being outnumbered in combat for decades now. Now that did not mean it was easy, but these Viper pilots were also the survivors of the long run from the cylons. In war, most of the time. It is the new people or novices that get kill, and very few of the veterans would fall. They were either better, or in most cases just luckier than the rest of them to learn a few tricks to survive.

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The battle started with the Vipers launching all of their external ordnance at the mass of enemy craft as they closed in on them. The missiles were the longest ranged version of the same anti-Raider weapon that the Raptors had launched into the cylon's engines. Each Viper could only carry two of the larger but very powerful weapons under each of their primary wings. The good point was that this weapon was designed to work in a mass wave type of attack or defenses, even if each Mark VII could only carry four of the monsters. Before the pair of heavy weapons had left their mother craft, each of the missiles would communicate with each other missile in the small group. Now each one would only go after their own targets. This would help control weather, one target would have two or more missile targeted on it at any one time. What the cylons should have done was to do the same thing to the Vipers approaching off of their pointed noses, with their larger internal weapons bays. But for some reason they did not do anything like that. This would be debated for years later, about why the cylons never had developed this technique when fighting against waves of Viper fighters. Lee and Bill Adama would later comment about how armchair admirals, would have the oddest things to focus on about a battle someone else planned and fought.

What the humans did not know was that the cylons had fallen into a pattern of operation, and methodology. The cylons were short fuel and some other key items that they were not use to having to deal with. The cylons had always planned on a very short and very bloody war, and then it would be over. One way, or the other. These two types of issues were what we're driving the tactics the humans were seeing today. The supply ship, should have been carrying more fuel to resupply the fleet, which had been in this system. It was to have replace all that had been used it the search for the humans, and the operation while they had been sitting in the systems. Instead the resupply ship had burned up all that it was supposed and had been planned for it to have drop off, before the speed run out had been forced on to it. This change of plans had left only what the cylons had in their tanks, for the Basestars to run all of the operation they felt like they needed to do. And that was all they were going to get, for some time to come. It was a hard problem to plan around, when you were not used to having to watch ever liter of fuel you were using.

Also all of the missiles had been off loaded, from any of the cylon craft while they were not on an active patrol. Missiles were very maintenance intensive items, even for cylons to maintain for use in combat. In fact all of the missiles were only allowed to have ten landing clocked on them, while being carried on a Raider. Before they had to be pulled off the craft. And checked for damage to their sensitive, and very delicate, bleeding edge technology of the lethal little beast. In the rush to launch all available battle craft to help the ground forces being attacked. They had just launched them as is. They had not loaded the empty missile bays or but any additional fuel into the jump engines. They just launched with what they had in the tanks, cannon ammunition bays, and nothing else was added in the rush to get them into space. It was a clear sign of the level of panic that had gripped the leadership of this cylon fleet, that day. When the Adamas had stopped by, to test their metal. It would be one of many clues that were pointed out later. By armchair admirals and captains, about how easy that battle should have been if only they had been in charge instead of the current military leaders.

When things started to be worked out by cooler heads on the cylons sides, the only craft with any missiles loaded on board, had been diverted to support the ground units. The rest of the cylon craft only had their built in cannons to service any Colonial space units with destruction. Some of the attacking cylon craft were able to generate misses from the Colonial missiles. But not many were either that lucky, or that good in controlling there craft. It worked out that only the Heavy Raiders, which were being flown by the human models, were the ones that were able to generate misses from the Viper launched weapons. But over two hundred more cylons fighting that day never would download again due to overloading systems, and then the Basestars were lost to the capital sized missile attacks. Pilots would call it a massive fraking furball, the largest that any of them have remembering having seen before. The humans just tried to keep with their wingmen and kill, and kill or be killed by the cylon spacecraft.

Helo pulled out of the fight after taking out a Heavy Raider, which had been all alone trying to kill one of the younger Viper pilots with a side shot. He quickly checked his crafts systems, and was amazed that his onboard system said he had blown away five cylon craft already, and he was still alive. While he was distracted, his wing mates' job was to keep any cylons that might be sniffing around, off his back while he was distracted. He had another surprise, which was that the Viper battle had only been going on for a little over four minutes after the massive launch of anti-Raider missiles. He keyed the transmitter to update all of the computers on the Vipers, and to inform the other pilots he was about to speak. It also shot every surviving Viper the updated tactical information, as it had come from the CAG on the Beast. "Okay your Frakers, all of the Basestars are flushed. The Beast is burning her engines out, so that she can get into range to finally support us a little better. Stay out of the Flak zones, which I slugged to you daggits." As soon as he had stopped talking, Helo flipped his nimble little craft into an indo. In a blink of an eye, both Vipers went looking for more cylons to kill. It should not be that hard to find what they were looking for. The problem would be, not getting killed by the cylons that they were looking for you at the same time.

He and his wingman took out three more Raiders each, before Halo lost her to the cylons. The last thing he saw of his wingman, was when she was punching out of her crippled Mark II Viper. He had not even seen what had hit her, when it happened, or even if it was still around the local area after blasting the Viper. All he knew was that she had punched out into the cold, but sometimes very hot of the surrounding space. This part of space also was not that empty, and was getting more dangerous by the passing second as it was flooded with fast moving fragments. He was trying to stay in the general area where she had punched out. He was using his Viper DRADIS systems to keep a lock on the suit passive beacon, the DRADIS reflective helmet. It was only slight return there, only also long as he was close to his free flying wingman. He could feed the data to both of the Battlestars for later use.

The Viper's pilot suits had built-in active beacons, but you normally did not want to turn one on in the middle of a Fraking big space battle. During the First Cylon War the first generation of Raiders would actively seek out those active suit beacons. And not wanting to use their limited supply of ammunition for their KEWs. They would just hit the human body at high speeds, with the Raiders heavily armored forward hull. Even under the protection provided by the emergency flight suit. A human body did not react that well, when it hit a hard surface moving above 500 KPS. That was when part of Helo's brain noticed that the target he was actively trying to remove from space. Seemed to be was working on opening the distance between it, and the rest of the group on nearby cylons. He pulled the trigger and all three of his cannons fired, as if they were one weapon not three. But the cylon ship was gone, by the time the 30mm KEW projectiles was even close to hitting it. In the split second it took him to depress the fire button, and for the rounds to leave the KEW barrels. The cylon craft had activated its jump engine, and left this star system to who know were. This short burst of rounds would keep moving through the dark of space for years to come, before starting to the fall towards the center star of the system. Years later those rounds would be unnoticed flashes on the star, as the outer layer of the star tuned the hard metal into gases.

Helo pushed a switch for mass transit button on his stick again. So that anyone with a receiver within this entire solar system would pick up on his words. "Hey! The Frakers are trying to get away. We have no bag limit today boy. Gett'em before they are all gone!" As soon as he let go of the transmit button, he could hear the metal hitting his cockpit like a hard rain on a tin roof.

It was well known that Raiders and Heavy Raiders would just start randomly to start jumping out of a combat zone. But only when it had been generally accepted that the current battle had turned against them. Knowing that the cylons were starting to leave the system, would give a great boost to the morale of the human crews and motivate them to kill more of the now fleeing cylons. The cylons knew they had lost this battle, and there self-preservation programing started to randomly kicked in. Where were they jumping to? No one would know. The bio controller on each the cylon craft, just plotted an interstellar jump away from the human attack craft. It would be one, which it thought was the best way to go. So that it might live longer, and maybe that they could get back to a larger cylon ship.

Helo was looking around the local area of space both visually, and on his systems scopes built into his high tech fighter. He was look for another wingman, when a new voice came over the system built into his helmet. His systems said the source of the transmission was coming from behind him at a speed that was only just slower than a Viper. "Keep them tight, we will go for the leakers." Halo flipped his bird in another endo, so that he could see what had been coming behind him. He did this with a well-trained flip of two controls in his hands, which were pure muscle memory. It was an amazing sight that greeted his naked eyes, as his fighter settled down after moving in three demotions all at once. He had been so focused on killing Raiders and Heavy Raiders. That he had lost track of one part of the battle.

The massive form of the Mercury Class Battlestar was closing the distance on the fighter's battle at an impress turn of speed, for something so huge. The massive weapons, that speckled the beast from bow to aft and along both sides. It looked like they were firing orange bolts of lightning, so often that it looked like a moving storm in space. And those weapons reached out along the edge of the small craft battle, to take out more and more cylons. The cylons were opening the distance from the Vipers in there desperation try to jump away from this maelstrom the humans had brought today. This just made it easier for the great warship to pick them off, without endangering the Vipers….. too much.

When the last cylon ship was gone or blown out of space, it was time for the few specially modified SAR Raptors left to do their jobs. They were launched and started to work on recovering every live, wounded, or died human pilot that they could find. As soon as those pitifully few Raptors had departed the Pegasus. Any Viper that needed to refuel or rearm started to lining up to land, on one of the two Colonial Battlestars. Helo was not one of them that needed resupply or had other emergencies, which needed to be taken care of by the great ships support personnel. He and the remaining Vipers were on distant Combat Air Patrol (CAP). That is until one of the CAGs could find something else for them to do, with their free time and fuel loaded on their little craft. With the blood pumping the way it was, along with the adrenaline still being pumped into his blood. It was going to be a long time for a pilot to stew in his own juices. It seemed like hours of waiting, but was only a hand full of minutes, before a request came out for a full update from every Viper still out in space. Halo felt a sly grin come to his face under the heavy flight helmet. He had an idea what the CAGs and higher command might be looking for. He pushed his Viper a little closer, to where he thought the CAG might be sending him next. Helo had a mental bet with himself, on how long it was going to take to get re-tasked.

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Helo was looking around, check out a few of the Vipers that were with in visual range of his craft to pass the time not looking at his dash mounted clock. It would seem that some of the older hands on the sticks today, had the same idea as Halo had. And they were putting themselves in a better position if it was true. He was just about to open up a communication line to one of the craft, which he recognized a personalized tail flash on. That was when a computer generated voice spoke threw the speakers in his flight helmet; bring him back to the real world in a crash of noise. "Helo this is CAG. I want you to take these ten Vipers, and find out what is going on dirt side." The voice was not from the CAG of Battlestar Galactic, but he CAG of Battlestar Pegasus. That was not a good sign, that the change of fleet mission had not come from the Flagship.

Karl Agathon looked at his screen that was center mounted on his Mark VII Viper cockpit, and ten other Viper icons were circled in gold highlights on the display. The change of orders was noted as coming from the Pegasus's CAG in his ships log. With this noted about who had given him the orders, and his heart sunk a little. He "knew" his home, the flagship, had taken a hard hit. If the CAG on the "junior" ship, was given fleet wide orders under his own name? That could only mean that the CIC on the Flagship, had more important things to worry about right about then.

"Will do." He told the CAG on the Pegasus. He touched each of the icons on his screen, and opened a transmission line to all of them at one time. One part of Helo's mind noted that all elven designated craft, were all home based on the Galactic before the battle today. "Okay! Let's go boys and girls, but let's save the fuel if we can this time. I think it might be a hot zone down there, and it's going to be a long ride back home." He did not have to say that their "home" might be a battle damaged wreck when they were able to get back out into deep space. Helo glanced over one shoulder to the battle scared ship that had been his home for so many years, and a frown crossed his face. She did not look so good, but the fires looked to be out at least to him. And at least she was not rolling and spinning out control anymore. He did not have time to look long or even at all if the true be told. Because he still had a mission to perform today. Inside he knew that he had some time, before someone might be shooting at him, again. So he had risked the look, he knew that he should not have made. Helo snapped his head, and looked away from the battle scared warship before the old girl was out of sensor range. He kept looking straight ahead at the cloud covered planet, that he had been directed to go towards.

Helo was acting, as the attack lead for this short squadron, for this little side mission. All the way towards the planet, he was being sent updated data on the two Battlestars that were some distance behind him. He passed the information along to the rest of the add hock unit, that the Galactica was now back under control of her CIC. The old girl was still venting gasses from some open compartments along one side, which were taking a while to plug. But she looked like she would now pull threw. At least to everyone in the CIC and in Damage Control, that was the way it looked like. A system off to one side of his tight cockpit beeped at Halo for attention, and he started scanning the local area with his good old Mark One's. He started talking into his pickup as he worked the information out. "Okay looks like some of the ships down, there are trying to lift off. If you see a cylon, don't wait on knock it down. We don't want those Frakers going after any of the civilian ships, as they get out of the mud." The lightly armored civilian ships could not take that much damage, barely more than what a lot smaller Raptor could handle. Still it they took even a light hit from a cylons attack craft in the atmosphere? They would at best, come crash back down to the ground again, with results that it did not take a lot of imagination to visualize.

Soon the lead Vipers, including Helo's craft, were wrapped in flames as they started to enter the thicker layers of the planet's atmosphere at very high speed. Halo was not looking forward to seeing what had happened on the ground while the two fleet had been battling it out in space. He knew that three ground combat regiment of cylons were on the ground. And they were facing less than thousand mostly noncombat trained armed people to stand against them. The odds were not good in his mind, and he was good at figuring out the odds on surviving in combat against cylons.


	28. Chapter 28 chp 19 exodus ground

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

Sable Cold thank you, for your review and please let me know whenever you spot something odd or not clear. It helps me, make the story better. The whole Kat/Racetrack flub is all on me. The CAG issue, well when the Battlestar wiki went down I lost my prime sources of BSG facts. I will add those other names to my notes. The whole Helo flying Vipers… well later in the story I "needed" Helo to have some Viper training. I think in in about 5 or 6 chapters from now. I have a one or two liner on why he is on the stick. I'm going to go back now and re-write that part, to make it clearer.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

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 **Chapter 19 Exodus Ground**

Jammer was in charge of four others that made up his little team of fighters. All three of them had been fighting cylons outside of the camp for some time, before being assigned to be his little fire team. The four of them all had been able to get Earther styled armor, and they even had Direct Energy Weapons to fight with. All of them had in fact, they all had more than one of those Earth made weapons. To most of the Colonials still living in the Refugee camp. Seeing them so outfitted, made them think that they were very well connected the semi mythical Earthers. That was true, somewhat. They all did have friends or even what they would call close friends, with some of them. What having all of that gear did mean, was that these four had been found to be. Both be good at killing cylons, and lucky to have been able to find all of those targets in the first place.

When word was sent out to gather any available combat forces, for a major shift in combat operation. They had come, just as they had been asked to. They were briefed in small groups about what was about to happen, and the risks that were already know and a few that were not fully known. Even with all of this information, they had volunteered to stay close to the refugee camp in cold campsites or damp caves until needed. And the night before, they had sneaked into the camp as soon as the sun had went down. It was hoped that little groups like this one, were going to be the heavy hammers of the Colonial military. At least for right now, on ground combat side of the coming events. He and Duck's group had been given the jobs that had to be done, but also had a lot of cylons standing around to get in the way of the mission. They were the bucket Brigades, and the cylons were the fire to be stomped out by those two brigades.

Both teams had rolled over there first set of targets without many issues or lose to their, small teams of fighters. The second set of targets they had gone after was a different matter. His team's last target had been the main gate, and guard points on both side and ends of the gate. Those four guard points had controlled access the outside word from the camp the humans lived in. Jammer was getting bone tired, but he knew that they still had a lot of work to do. Jammer put his hand next to his ear to listen to the updated orders coming threw his Colonial made ear bud. He smiled and looked at his group of combat harden Colonials. They were taking a break, after the last of the cylons had been put down by them.

It was not a nice smile, and his three compatriots were put on edge at first by the look. "Let's go people. We have an appointment to see the President. We don't want to be Fraking late, do we?" The group looked at him like he might need to see a doctor, and it was not the bone mending kind of a doctor. When Jammer stared to check his weapons and armor, they did the same out of habit more than anything. The four of them were moving in about five minutes, after notice being given to them of the new target. The grate would be covered a mixed group of Colonials armed with captured cylon/human rifles and pistols. Their numbers would grow until they had a dozen lightly armored fighters at that location. They were there, to make sure no cylons tried to use it as an entry or exit point from the camp.

The little group picked up two more Colonial's when they started to shift positions away from the smoking gate and guard points. Now the group of six moved as quickly as they could, and that was pretty fast compared to what most other fire teams could do. What added to their speed, was that they did not have to worry about cylons being around the interior of the camp. The ones that might be trying to intercept them as Jammer and his group shifted locations. This was because most of them had already been taken out in the first few minutes of the human uprising. What was left of the threats inside the wire, were thought to be already contained into isolated pockets, for now. That could change at any minute, but with the weapon and body armor this team was packing. If they ran into any cylons, it just would make the camp safer for the rest of the refuge fighters. The human uprising had used surprise to the maximum ruthlessly advantage that they could muster.

After about fifteen minutes of run/walking through the mud lanes of the camp. The expanded group was almost to the third target area of the day. Now that they were closer. The rest of them now connected the dots about their orders, which had not been explicitly told to them. They were going to Colonial One, and they were heavily armed and armored. It had all the makings of being a good time, a very good time. That is, as long as your last name was not Baltar. The team used a nearby set of shacks not far from the target, as cover to get their well-practiced formation setup in safety. The four of them had worked on this formation more than a few times, but it still took them some time to get it right today, with the two added new bodies. Luckily they did it without any noise carrying more than four or five feet, form where they were working up for the attack. Now ready, they made their way to the Eversun made passenger star-liner using as much cover at they could along the way to the target. The entry target for the assaulting group, was the forward entrance-way ramp. Which was always down for easy entrance, and exiting the ground VIP craft.

Colonial One was not set up to be a defensive position by the cylons or by the humans for that matter. Jammer and his team, had pretty good cover and concealment most of the way to the loading ramp of the spaceship. Jammer was leading from the front and turned the last corner slowly, which would put him only fifteen feet from the boarding ramp. This was when Jammer and his team ran into the first road bump to their mission. Jammer quickly pulled his head back around the corner, and almost caused a pile up behind him of bodies, armor and weapons. He listens as hard as he could, and he did not hear any sign. That he might have been spotted by the guards, which were not supposed to be there, had seen him.

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There were two human "Police" that were decked out in full marine style body armor, complete with rifle and a holstered pistol on their upper thighs were standing at the bottom of the stairs. Those open topped stairs, which you had to go up to reach the "living" areas of the ship. And these two "Police" were not part of Colonel Tigh's resistance force. Jammer and his group did not know how they were going to act towards them, when they came face to face with each other packing firearms. Jammer made a nod to let the rest of the group know that he was now ready. Then they were moving around the protection of the corner, and into the open space between space ships at a very quick walk. All the while they were shoulder to shoulder or back to front, like one massive and mean insect.

While Jammer and his combat group were still moving, all of the sudden. The nearest guard turned, and started to bring his rile up in there general direction. He might have seen the movement of Jammer, or maybe he heard a squish of some mud under one of their quickly moving combat boots on the lane they were traveling on. It did not matter, the guards were now aware that Jammer, and his little group of marry friends were there. The two guards standing outside of the grounded center of authority, were not military or even police trained. Colonel Tigh had called them "Want A be's" when he bothered to talk about them at all. But that did not mean, that they could not kill you or completely blow the mission for you. This group should have been off shift already, there replace would not have shown up for work today. That pair did report to Colonel Tigh, and he had given them missions that the body armor, weapons and ammunition were help out immensely.

Jammer knew he had to act fast. And he made a few long and quick steps, to close the distance to the nearest guard. He was now very thankful that he took after his father with very long legs, this had made it a pain to find pants that fit right. But now he had his slender Pulse Laser Rifle a few feet from the nearest guards face, and without yelling or getting aggressive. It was just as the books called for it to be done. He conveyed his thoughts to the two guards, and now it was just a matter which way they wanted to jump. They could do there "jobs", or they could allow Jammer to do his. It was only a question of how much human blood would be spilled.

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Richard "call me Rick" had been standing guard all day fully exposed to the hostile elements of this planet. He and this jerk with him, should have been relieved at noon. But no one had shown up, to relieve them of guard duty. They could hear weapons fire coming from what seemed like all over the camp. Never the less they had stayed on point, just as they had been told to do by someone who said that they were on Baltar personnel staff. They had even seen flashes high in the sky, that Rick thought might be signs of a space battle going on above them. When he had voiced his opinion. That it might be Adama coming back, and they should both go join the fight against the cylon. His assigned partner for the day disagreed with him, flatly and very vocally. Rick had only taken this job, so that he could put food on the table. He had lost all of his family during the cylon attack, and he had decided that he might be ready to start a new chapter in his life on this mud ball a few months ago. He could since that a lot of other people were starting to feel the same. He had no idea why, but somehow he had been caught up in the slowly changing mood of the Refugee camp. But to start this new life. You needed money, and there were very few constantly paying jobs out there. And there were no jobs that paid as well as this one did. It also paid you in "money" or other things that worked just as well from time to time. All he had to do was fallow orders, and stand around a lot of times.

For a time, he had thought he might try his luck and sneak out of the camp into the wood line. Rumors were going like crazy about what might be hiding there, but he knew that he was not really trained for combat. That is, besides what he had seen on all of those entertainment shows. The ones that he had loved so much, before the attack. He knew enough about guns to qualify on the cylon makeshift range, but that was it. He was only supposed to be a security guard, and personnel traffic control into or more often not allowing anyone into the ship called Colonial One.

The other guy with him who went by the name of Michael, and don't you dare call me Mike, Ancillary. He was a totally different sort of person all together, than Rick. He had failed out of both the police force training, and the military acceptance course. All between twelve and eighteen months, before the cylons sneak attack. He like the power this job let him think, that he had. He would go out of his way to make the others in the camp lives even harder, than it had to be already. Then he would brag about it to Rick during the duty shifts, or anyone else he pulled a guard shift.

In Rick's mind, Michael was a dumb bully. Which he would have placed a bet, would come to a bad end sooner or later. Michael thought Adama, and all of the others were dead, and he had told Rick this many times. He also thought that whatever was happening to the cylons outside of the protective fences, was bad news for them (meaning him) also. To pass the time on guard duty. He would quote from Baltar speeches, or anything else Baltar had said. All to explain what was happening, or whatever else he thought fit the current situation close enough. It was worse than those guys, who had always followed certain types of entertainment shows way too closely, back home. Today had been the worse day so far. It looked to be on the way to getting even worse the later in the day it got, and they were still on duty. Rick was already thinking that no amount of overtime pay, was worth dealing with this jackal in human skin.

Now Rick was just trying to be quite, and work out some way to sneak away from this jerk. That is without him maybe, shooting him in the back or something. If he was cough trying to sneak away from his "job". Then Rick thought he heard something that did not fit, and out of the corner of his right eye he saw a flash of movement that should not have been there. He turned and his rifle went from being parallel to the ground at his waist, to coming up to a better position to defend the ramp. It was all out of habit, and muscle memory. Beside it was what you were supposed to do, according to all of the movies he had seen.

Whoever it was, it moved like they knew what they were doing, one part of his mind noted. They had gotten within fifteen feet of him, without the pair of them even noticing them. All while in broad daylight, and they were not talking. These thoughts flashed through one part of Rick's mind. Then the leader of six oddly clothes individual was just there, and he did it within a flash too fast for Rick to process the increased speed. The leader or point man had an oddly shaped and unknown type of weapon in his hands. That now seem to be almost touching his face, and seemed to be very threatening without saying word or doing anything but pointing it for now. "Well I guess I am relieved." Rick thought to himself.

While he was looking at the barrel of the strange weapon a voice came to his ear. "Drop your Fraking weapons, or I will blow you into daggit food." Rick had no idea who it was ordering him around. This was odd, for such a small town as this camp had turned into while hiding from the cylons. Rick was focused on looking at the weapon, and not what was being said by the oddly clothed man standing in his teeth. The armed stranger was very much in intruding into his "personnel space" and sweat started to run down Rick's spine.

Rick had no issues with that whatever this man was saying, as long as he did not shot him in the face. "Let see outnumbered, out trained, and out gunned. Yep, time to drop the weapon. You can clean the mud off of your weapons later, if you are still able to breath. Besides that was what they had always did in the entertainment shows he had seen. When someone was put in a situation something like this. It was that or the good guy or bad guy, would shoot the person. That he had just gotten the drop on." Rick let the rifle slip from his hands fall onto the ground, and without orders or directions of any kind from his "senior partner". Rick slowly raised his hands palm towards his head, never making a sudden movement of any kind as he moved. He just looked at the set of eyes behind some kind of black, maybe armored mask, way too close to him. He made sure that the fingers did not go above his shoulders by more than a few inches. Just like he had seen done on the entertainment channels, back before the cylons had blasted it to radioactive waste. This set of movements, had so not been part of his short training he had taken for this job.

That was when Michael opened his big fat mouth, again. At exactly the wrong time, and Rick knew he was about to die. Michael was almost frothing at the mouth, about what was going on. He had seen his lazy, and dull whited partner make the odd move away from his proper guard position. He had been about to ask, what the frak he was doing. That was when he saw his weapon start to move from the approved "guard" position. Then his eyes were drawn to the movement of the six armed people closing in on them from that side of the field. His mouth started moving with a loud voice, with whatever popped into his small little brain. "What are you Fraking doing?" This had been addressed to Rick. Then he locked eyes with the person with the strange weapon like object. "I bet it you are the ones that are screwing up, what Baltar had been trying to do for us. You better drop your little toy, or I'm going to show you what a real rifle will do!" Michael has little balls of spit flying from his mouth on every angle possible, now that he noticed what was going on. It was just too bad that his brain did not tell him exactly what was going on. Then again, he was not known for having any extra brain power to spare after what was need to keep his heart going and breathing.

All Rick heard in his mind, was his death knell sounding his soon arrival at the river Styx. He wanted to close his eyes, but instead. He just keep them looking at the lead man of the strange group and hopped that, the masked man could see that he was not the threat. Since he did not close his eyes. He was able to see a quick movement, and an odd pistol looking device came up from the second person in line. Rick heard nothing but a faint whine from the odd looking pistol. A part of his mind, said that it might be a less than lethal weapon. The kind that someone might have rigged up in a ships small machine shop. There had been rumors and talk around the mess hall tables about them. He was thinking about that, right up until. He felt something warm and wet, splash on the back of his neck. And then he knew that his partners had just been taken down. And it happened by a weapon that sound no louder than your average case of gas.

That was too much, and his head turned to see what happened on its own accord and without the controlling part of brain giving the orders. As his head was still turning, his ears picked up the wet thud sound, of something large hitting the soggy ground to his left side. Rich eyes automatically track down, towards where the wet sound had come from. Mike was lying in the mud, without a head above the neck line, his body was still slightly twitching from the odd nerve impulse. The head was completely gone, along with his police issued cold/rain cap, ear, and neck guards. Either one of those items, should have stopped most pistol caliber round impacts. His head looked like it had been popped like a red filled zit from some teenager's nightmare. The warm and wet that had struck Rick's neck, had been blood and other soft parts of Mikes head flying through the air. Rick was covered from the top of the back of his head, to about the middle of his back. All with the questionable amount of white/grey matter from the second guard. There was no question about the amount of blood staining the back plate of his body armor.

Rick was staring wide eyed at the headless body in the mud, and amazingly his mind was still working. Well it was working somewhat, anyway. "What kind of weapon does not make a sound, and can still do that to a body?" That was a quick thought that ran threw his head. Before a voice got him to look back at the leader of this group, who was still standing in front of him. His mind was rebelling with everything that was going on, and compressed into such a short amount of time.

"I said! Are we going to have a problem with you to?" Jammer was still speaking through the open slits in his armored face mask. He took a half step closer, so now the Earth built weapon was almost touching the nose of the other man who had been on guard duty. This was not the correct way to do this type of action. Being that close, if Rich had wanted to. He could have made a move, to try to take the weapon way from Jammer a half a dozen different ways. It would have been a bad idea, but then again sometimes people had made a living of turning bad ideas into action. "We can always leave you, like your buddy over there. If you want?" Jammer did not want to do this. But he would, to protect his people and complete the mission.

Rick gave a cocky little smile, to the words that the stranger had just said to him. He had never like Baltar, and had even voted for Laura Roslin in the last election. "I am just here to keep everyone out that does not have an appointment, with anyone that might or might not be on this ship. That is all I'm supposed to do. I have been repeatedly told this by a few people who make more, than I do. Why change now?" He tilted his chin toward the odd rifle in Jammer's hands, which was still pointed at him. "I think I saw your name on the list this morning. It might have been under stranger, with strange looking guns, and with a party of five. You will have to check those weapons with the two guards', which are right inside the hatch at the top of the stairs. They will be setting or sleeping at the desk that will be on the right side, as you enter the hatch. The hatch almost will hit the desk, if you open it all the way real hard." Rick looked at his watch quickly, with a slight turn of his left wrist. "Baltar should be in his living area, with an afternoon girl or two." He made a slightly strained face. He did not want say the next part, but he also did not want to get shot. "Felix Gaeta could be anywhere, and I don't know if he has a weapon or not. That is all of the people, which I know were scheduled to take appointments today." This planet was cold. That did not mean that Rick was not sweating bullets in steams running off his face. Or they could have been tears, coming out of his eyes. He did not know or care to be honest. He just wanted to prove that he was being helpful, and to get the frak away from here. All without leaking any of his blood.

Jammer let his Earth made weapon drop some, and took one hand off the weapon. Then he pulled up his mask up off of his face, so that Rick could see his face more fully with his free hand. "Well Rick. It's nice to know whose side you're on finally. You could have let us known, before today. It would have save us all some trouble, and more than a little planning time. I don't think it would have helped that fraker." Jammer made a face, as he used his own chin to point to the headless body slowly cooling body in the mud at their feet.

Rick almost let his bladder go when the stranger let his weapon drop. And now that it was not so in his face, and then pulled the odd looking mask up. He had more than one meal with Jammer, and had worked on the wood cutting detail with him more than a few times. Before he had picked up this job, and Jammer found something else to do with his free time. "Well good to see you to Jammer." Rick started to shake his head from side to side slowly in disbelief. "I had no idea who I would talk to." Now that Rick, knew he was not going to die right then. His mind was free to keep up with the movements going on around him, and even let his head moved so that he could see better. "I take it there might be a place for me to report to, for possible reassignment?" If Jammer was involved in this uprising. Then it was a very good chance, that it was part of a bigger plan. Rick knew that Jammer would never risk his wife, if something like this operation failed against the cylons. "This had to be part of something the Admiral had cooked up," thought Rick.

Jammer was not sure what to do next. No one had talked to him about what to do, in a situation like this. Rick was a semi-unknown on whose side he might be on. He could be playing a game on them. Jammer quickly decided that it was best not to push his luck. He came up with only one option that seemed to him to be the safest for everybody. "Just go back to your place, and if you see any cylons on the way? Then use that rifle on them. I will word pass along, that you helped us here." He did not wait to get a reply from Rick. The protective mask was back down around his face, and the short line of people went up the space liners access ramp quite as a thieves in the night.

#########

Felix was setting on the empty bed that acted as the couch/desk/filing cabinet in the small cabin, that he had called his home for some time now. With the design of the room. His counter-terrorism training classes, had said that this was the safest area to be. Now all he had to do was wait for the next step to happen. When the time had come, that the attack was "supposed" to start. He made up an excuse. Something along the lines that he was not feeling well, so that he could leave Baltar's front official office earlier than was normal for him to do so.

Felix made sure that his hands were exposed, empty, and that there was nothing near him that even resembled a weapon of any kind. Now all he had to do sit on the bed, waiting, and try not to have a heart attack as he watched the clock slowly flip numbers. The door or hatch to his room was not even closed, but just cracked open a little less than half way. He was hopping that it would swing open at the slightest push by someone that might be in the ship's main longitudinal access way. Next to him on the bed was the final prize, which he had been asked to acquire by the Resistance movement. They did not want to risk it being found at the drop site, so he had been told to hold onto it. That is if he had found the data. Then someone would physically get the data from him today, at around this time. That was all the message had said, when he went to dead drop after pulling the last bit of needed data. He had worked all on his own that an uprising was in the works, from those few words.

Felix was very confused when he had read the note, at first. Holding onto the data was a risk with all the cylons running around Colonial One, but he had done it anyway. He only had needed to think about the note for a few minutes to realize that and uprising was coming, and Bill Adama was going to need him again. Now all he had to do was wait in his cabin, and not lose what was left of his mind as he waited. He had been just outside of Colonial One stretching and warming up his muscles, something he did almost daily. That had been when he, thought he heard the first sounds of faint weapons fire. Then he quickly returned to his main working area, he had fainted sick. He had a plan, but it was a very thin one. To explain the data he was holding, if it was found out by the cylons or Baltar. He hoped that he would only need it, if the uprising failed. Then again, he also had a backup plan for that one turn of events. If they, being the cylons, did not believe him. He hoped that the Number One called John would there, to take the one shot he would only have at revenge. It was not a great plan but he did not want to die alone, if he could help it.

Felix had to shake his head, to try to clear that line of morbid thoughts out of his head. He had to keep his eyes closed after only being seated for about ten minutes. That was just so that his eyes would not keeping going to the data storage device, sitting beside him on the bed. This also had the effect, of making him aware of every sound on the ship that had reached his ears. He could hear the faint rhythmic thumping of Balarts bed in the back cabin, with is afternoon plaything. He could even hear the snores coming from the two armored guards ten feet up the hall, at the only non-blocked/locked exit from the ship. This caused Felix to give sly smirk to the empty room. If Colonel Tigh or even if either Adama had been around. Those two would have been broken for the service so fast, that their snot would not have caught up to them for a fraking week. They should have been able to hear the sounds for weapons fire from their location, if they were not sleeping that it is. "Yep after Bill Adama had gotten done with them. They would have wished that they had "only" been blown out of an airlock." Felix's mind was trying to latch onto anything to distract him.

Felix was slowly breathing with his eyes closed, when he somehow felt or maybe heard the first change in his local environment. "It sounds like one of the exhaust air vent fans is overheating again. What? That last thump was not from Baltar's room." Thought Felix. Then he thought, that he had heard a foot come down onto very wet carpet not far away. The sly smile was back on Felix's face. "I'm about to be a hero, or I am about to be shot."

It was some time later. That Felix sensed, rather than heard the hatch open the rest of way into his room. The blood was pounding in his ears, and now there was no way to control his breathing for another second. "If they are my people, how did they get around the two guards down the hall? And do it without making any noise? They did not have any suppressed weapons that he knew of on either of the Battlestars." His quick mind was working as fast as it ever had. And each idea kept pointing to the fact that it was not a human on his side coming into his room.

#############

Jammer and his team stacked up on the main hatch, with his whole team stacked up behind him going down the stairs. He release the rifle so that the sling would retract the weapon back to his chest, out of the way for now with only a slight hiss of moving fabric to betray him. With both of his hands now free, he pulled his much loved ION pistol. He had the time, and he checked the output setting and charge remaining in the E-Clip concealed in the hand grip. Happy that it was good, he slowly opened the pressure hatch that would lead deeper into the ground space ship. Colonial One was a very well maintained ship, maybe the best maintained in what was left of the rag tag fleet of civilian ships. And the main access hatch opened without making a sound.

The hatch should have swung away from the desks that the two sleeping guards were supposed to be manning. The way they were set up the door would give any attacker come cover from any fire that might have come from the inside guard's position. It was another example of something being done for looks and not real use. A single sheet of paper that was the duty roster for the guards was posed near the hatch, Jammer matched the data and read the names on the page that were not marked out. He gave a sly smile at see who was still on shift. These two "guards" were part of a six man crew the resistance knew about. They were known to have reported on their fellow humans, many times to the cylons overseers for money or other things of value to them. They were two legged rats.

Jammer had been told to kill any of the people on that short list. If he could and no matter what the rest of the mission might be. He stepped over the hatch frame lip, and lined up the little hand held weapon on to the first human skull he saw. It was less than five feet away, and touched the button on the Ion pistols trigger, and gave it just a two pounds of pressure from his finger tip. The only sound audible that covered the distance back to Jammer's ears, was the headless body falling out of the chair. This sound did start to wake up the second man, but a second head shot made sure that he would never wake up again. At least not on this world or plain of reality, maybe Hades was open to them.

Jammer was now a battle hardened combat veteran. Now having seen more killing and death than most Colonial Marines, had seen before the cylons had come back. He knew he would pay for it later. He also knew that he had to live first, to be able to pay for it later. He had started seeing the faces of the first dead human forms cylons the last few nights, when his eyes closed for the night. He was already cursing the cylons for making themselves look so much like humans, that it was cause his flash backs and nightmares. He knew that he was not the only one and he had remembering hearing of this happening to some of the survivors from the First Cylon war. He had never understood, back then. Why they would get those flash back about dropping some machines, now he knew better. In as with many things in life, it was complicated.

Jammer had to blink his eyes a few times, after the second head went from human to a red mist almost between eye blinks. After his eyes cleared from those gory after images, he stepped around the bodies that were now bleeding out on the carpeted floor. There was not a need to check to see if they were still breathing or not. The blood was pouring out of the top of the two bodies in quiet waves of red, and soaking the carpet on the floor like a pair red colored twin rivers. Jammer led the way as they checked the first two rooms, after they passed the check in desk. Amazingly and much to the surprise of the six troopers, they were all empty of any human or cylon presence. They only had two more rooms to clear of any threats. Then they had the main seating area of the liner. After the seating area, there was the Presidential office, and at the end of the liner was now the Presidential residence or living quarters. They had only just started another long and very tiring job.

Room Number Three was also empty, but it had been tricky to clear to make sure that it was safe to leave behind the six fighters. That was because the room next to it, had a half open hatch. Luckily room three was the smallest room, and without any other door Jammer needed to open to make sure there was no one or nothing hiding behind it. By this time Jammer was sweating under the heat that was building up under this body armor, but he and this team kept moving very slowly down the hall. Just because you were uncomfortable, did not mean that you should rush the job. After being so long on this planet, sweating because you were hot was now a novel experience. The hatch to the fourth and final cabin on this side of the ship was cracked open. Jammer slowly pushed it the rest of the way open with his off hand. His shooting and aiming hand never left the Earth made weapon. He started scanning the room over the sights of the heavy pistol, as more and more of the room came into view, with the slowly and quietly opening cabin hatch.

Jammer saw a man sitting on a narrow bed covered in papers of some kind. He was not moving and with his eyes closed like he was sleeping sitting up, or deep in prayer to one of the Gods. Jammer knew that he was supposed to protect "a package", as well as try to take Baltar alive when he had been given "go" to do this over all task. He had been luckily the Laura had talked to him about this, before the events of today rolled out. And they could not delay long enough to get a complete or more detailed briefing on this mission. When Jammer stepped the first full step into the room, he already could identify the man sitting on the messy bed, as Felix Gaeta. He was one of the late bridge officers of the Battlestar Galactica, who had found other jobs after landing on this planet. Was this the package he was supposed to collect? Felix was on the suspected list of key supporters of Baltar. Jammer had been told the night before. That the Colonial underground had a spy inside the grounded and converted space liner, but they did not know who he might be. He was given a list of possible people, and a few other items that should help him out. That is if he had been told to execute this mission.

##########

Felix was half expecting the person or whatever was slowly entering his room to be one of the cylon coming to collect him. After all they had to have, found out that he had been passing information to Colonel Tigh and his group by now. He cracked open his eyes just enough to make them look like they were still closed. But in truth he could see well enough, to know who was standing at the door to his little home. Felix had never seen the cloths that this man had on, and he was literally covered head to foot in them. He took a breath, and gave the Challenge code word, in a voice just loud enough to carry the right distance. "Ambrosia?" He was hopping that it was just only just loud enough to carry to who was standing at the hatch way and not much farther.

Jammer stopped moving like he had slammed into a brick wall, but only dropped the weapon down a little. Now it was pointed more at the floor, and not the male sitting on the bed, with half closed eyes. Now Jammer used his off hand to pull up the covering mask on his face, to defuse the situation of waving lethal weapons around. Now that Felix would be able to see that he was not a human form cylon, but a human. He doubted that Felix would remember who he was, and he gave the counter sign he had been briefed on. "Dagget." Jammer said it only a little bit louder than the volume Felix had used. Then he fallowed it a little softer. "Frak, you're the package?" Jammer could see that the man had started to breathe deeper again, as soon as the counter sign had reached his ear. That was the only sign that Felix had been under any kind of stress. Jammer was impressed as all frak, at Felix's cool reaction to the stress he had to have been under. "You're one tough Fraker Mr. Gaeta. I think a lot of people are going to have to rethink, what they thought they knew about you lately." Jammer let his inner voice say, and he made sure not to get out of his mouth. He did not want to confuse any issues, the now reviled identity of the spy might cause.

Felix rose slowly and as just as slowly reached for the data storage device on his right side. The thin device was complete hidden from view by a few strategically placed printed out sheets of cut corner paper. "Sort of, the package you are to pick up. Is data. I have a copy of all the codes to unlock all of the jump engines, which Colonel Tigh wanted." He gave a sly smile, to the other member of the old crew of Galactica. "I might have been able to get a few other items, while I was in the some of the other files."

"Yep double tough, a spy right next to the setting President. And in an office were the cylons out numbering humans, every day of the week. Adama must have ship loads of trust in him, to give him this kind of mission. And he had been just sitting, like a spider in a web, ever since he had gotten out of the service." Jammer had never liked bridge crew, while had in the Colonial military. He had always thought of them as soft or lazy compared to the hard working deck crew. That had just changed, even though he did not have all of the true facts. He had only was jumping to conclusion, with what he thought had been happening behind the scenes.

Jammer's mind was going in hyper drive with all of the chemicals his body was still pluming into it. Jammer gave a slight smile and pointed his chin off to one side. "Looks like we had a good day already. We have another task yet to finish. Jay and Amber keep him safe." As he was talking he was turning, then he point to Felix over his shoulder. "If things go wrong, you have to get him back to the command post with whatever he needs to carry." Jammer stopped talking and turned back to face the spy that had been so helpful to the human resistance. He did not know if Felix would know where to go, if/when things went majorly sideways outside the walls of this space liner. "It's in the school tent, but you just don't want to walk up on it without and invitation." Jammer was rewarded by a slight head nod from Felix. Jammer nodded back, and then stepped out of the cabin. "The rest, let's go finish clearing the ship. Let's go see what Baltar has to say to us." He pointed to the back of the passenger liner. Jammer was focused on the mission, but a part of his brain was wondering what the Frak was going on with the rest of the plan.

The four remaining armed figures moved through the ship like lethal ghosts, but no one else was encountered all the way through the rest of the ship. It would seem that more than just Felix had felt the sea change, and left the "power center" of the refugee camp sometime after the fighting has started. Jammer and his group were all breathing hard. It was not from the work, but the stress of the action as they reached the last room in the modified liner. Jammer leaned closer and put an ear to the last door and held his breath, so that he could hear what was going on in the other room a little better. He could hear one male voice, and two female voices on the other side of the non-space rated ornamental wooden door. It sounded like the little group was having a fine old good time in the backroom. Jammer had a strong dislike towards Baltar, even before he had started helping the Earthers fight the cylons. That dislike had not gotten any better, with the passage of time. He did not like it when people used there position of power to get personnel advantage.

Jammer and the rest of the group had heard all of the stories about what was happening, in this room for months. When Jammer pulled his head back away from the door, he spoke in a very low voice so that only the team hovering over him could hear. "I wish I had a better idea of just when, it was the wrong time to interrupt them."

He had an evil grin as he looked around him at the others. He was rewarded with a few old looks at his statement. Then one of the others of his smaller group stepped forward, and put her ear to the door just as Jammer had done. She was quite for a bit, and then pulled away from the thin door with a slight shrug of her small shoulders. It was assumed that, she had no better idea of when entering would have the most dramatic effect either.

Jammer nodded to the group and the grin was replaced with a tight lipped look. It was going to be his call, so why wait any longer. "Okay on three. Remember we want him alive and with no injuries, at least none that might be used against us in a court of law or public opinion. The "real" President was very clear on that point, repeatedly. We all know how slippery this little Frak can be." He made eye contact with each of the three others that were left in his little group. He was now satisfied, that they would do their best to obey the orders he had given. He had been in enough combat by now, that he understood that sometimes Frak just happened. He was very okay with this rule of combat, especially today.

Jammer slowly reach for the handle and tested it the ornate door was unlocked or not. "The sick fraker probable would like it, if someone walked in on him during times like these. Well you won't like it this time, buddy." Jammer did not look around to check with the rest of his stack. He threw the hatch open with a hard shove, and like a tidal wave of bodies, armor, and weapons. The four of them rushed into the compartment, ready to take who they had come for. It would not matter if Baltar wanted to go with them, or not. The stack used for combat entry was mainly there in case they ran into any cylons that might be in the room. Jammer could have moved fastest if he was along, entering the room. But with Baltar, no one was sure what to expect when Jammer and his team entered the room. Jammer and his group were really going to enjoy this. They were all betting that one fact, and that one fact alone. It was when the story got out to the rest of the humans, it was all was a good bet that they would not have to buy any drinks for a while. That is if they lived long enough that is to tell the tail, and they were out from under the thumbs of the cylons.

#####

Felix heard first a loud crash, and then screams from both male and female throats. The sounds flowed through his opened hatched way to his small room like the sounds of Valkyries at banquet. He had been expecting to hear sounds of weapons fire. But there had been none that he could discern before the crash or before the yelling had started. Then Felix a heard a male voice carrying over, some of the more feminine sounding screams. He could not make out what was being said by that male voice, but he knew who the voice was coming from. It had command and it had the tone, which the owner of the voice was not going to be Fraked with today. In other words, Felix did not think that was coming from Baltar. Who, Felix was betting, had been latterly caught with his pants down today.

Felix looked at his two guards that were still standing in his small little cabin with him. He had thought at first that they would take him off of the grounded spaceship first, before they had gone after Baltar. Then he realized that, what if he was in the small access way when weapons fire was exchanged. He and his escorts would have been dead meat, without anywhere to dodge to get out of the line of fire. When he made eye contact with one of the mask covered escorts, he raised an eyebrow and gave voice to his mental question. "I was hoping that you all would just kill, that Fraker." The tone he used was dripping with disdain and venom. As he was referencing to the waste of skin, that had been the sitting President of the Colonies of Man.

One of the guards, he could not tell if it was the male or the female one, judging by the names Jammer had used. Just shrugged and popped there head out the open hatch frame. And looked down the hall towards, the sound of where the action sounded like it was coming from. The guard was only looking for a hand full of seconds, before armored covered head came back into the Felix's cabin. Now the whole group in the cabin could hear what was being yelled. And by now, most of them would know who it was coming from, even if they did not know who they had been sent to recover. Felix felt a smile come to his face as the yelling got louder and move…descriptive. Felix moved just a little bit so that he would have an unobstructed view of what he hopped he was about to see in the ships main access way.

"I say you can't do this to me! I'm the President, you all work for me! Let me go, this instant! I will see you all put in a cell for this! Let me go now, or you all will never see the skies of this planet again for as long as you live!" It was going on and on, as well as getting louder and louder at a steady pace. It was almost like a walking pace. It was that same grading voice, which more and more people had said that they had grown to hate over these last few months. But the guards that were still down from Felix's cabin stated to snicker like little kids. This just made Baltar get louder at the obvious insult that was being given to him by these four thugs. His will trained accent was also starting to slip just a little bit, the more he yelled at the people who had interrupted him.

When the voice was just outside his small cabin, Felix not hold himself back any longer and looked to see what was going on in the hallway. He saw for the first time. The most wonderful sight he had seen in years, maybe all the way back to a time before the cylons attack. Between two of the armed individuals that were wearing the same type of body armor Felix's escorts had on. Was a naked man, and he was being dragged down the hall, and also with his arms somehow cuffed behind his back. It looked painful, but very funny all at the same time. That is as long as you were not the one being carried that way, with your toes dragging in the short pile stained carpet. That would be a hard case of carpet burn to explain to anyone. Baltar's head was going back and forth to look up at his two escorts, demanding that they release them with each swing of his head along that arc. During one of the rotations that Baltar's head made demanding to be released, his eyes saw Felix. He was just standing in the hatch way of his cabin looking at him. But for some reason, not moving to come to his aid like he should have already done. Baltar was in such distress, that he did not put all the dots together.

"Felix, Felix! Tell them who I am! Tell them, that if they don't let me go. I will have them in chains, when I find out who they are!" When he noticed that Felix was smiling down at him, and not moving towards him fast enough Baltar started sputtering again if at a lower volume. "Don't just stand man! Help me, you lazy Fraker! This cannot be happening. You're all going to fraking pay. I promise you all are going to wish you were never been born." Baltar's voice went high, almost into the ultra-sonic ranges, as he raged against what was happening to him. He had never been man handled like this, not even when he was an overly smart boy of eight in a not so small town.

Felix smiled down at the naked man, and made eye contact with Baltar. "No. I think you have enough help. I just would get in the way, of them doing the right thing." He cocked his head one side but still looking down at the man. And he gave an evil smile, one he had been holding inside for a number of months now. "What? No cylons to help you now? My, that is a shame don't you thank." The tone was just evil, and it matches what his face was showing to everyone that could see it. Now Felix understood way his "escort" had kept their faces covered. It was to hide who they were from the target they had come to collect.

This final statement for Felix started another round of yelling, and cursing coming from the naked man. All the while he was being dragged out of the space liner, and into the cool wet air of the planet. When they could no longer hear the yelling, one guard turned and then pointed to the hall way for some reason they were still not talking to the spy. Felix understood what they meant. Besides maybe they were finding it hard to not open there mouths, and not start laughing at the scene that had just played out before their eyes.

Felix grabbed a few things that were in his rucksack, and he had pre-packed. Next he grabbed the data he had been asked to gather. When he was done, he looked at his own set of escorts. "I guess it's my turn to leave. Well, at least I have cloths on." This got a chuckle from the two, as they left the ship cabin started walking towards the ships exit. They made a quick walk, to where they needed to go. As it often happens in War, things change all of the time. While they were still moving towards the command tent. They had given new orders, and area to report to. They were also told to make it to the new location as fast as they could. Things were going a lot faster than anyone had hopped or planned for.

They were not to go to the main command post, but to one of the larger liners that the captain and crew were working with Tigh and Roslin. They were able to use the massive computer systems on this ship, to access and pass along. All of the codes, that would unlock the jump drives of each of the Colonial ships. Even with the powerful computers on that ship, it was a slow process. But they were making headway only minutes after arriving on the ship. That is until a mass and frantic transmission, was sent out on an open frequency to all of the human ship. One of the ships had gotten its long ranged DRADIS back up, and it was detecting a truly massive wave of cylons Raiders. And they were heading towards the planet, and their general location on the planet. It was the largest number of attacking cylons, which anyone alive had ever seen. At least sense the first cylon war, or had lived to tell about it during this new war.

This frantic transmission sent a wave of terror rippling through the grounded fleet of spaceships. The ships had not been able to run up there main engines, and most had not even been able to have any maintenance done on them after they landed on this planet. That is even if they had done that maintenance or could have made any spare parts on the few ships machine shops. It was not every shop that could make those parts. Besides it would have drawn too much attention to those ships with the right shops and the ones testing there engines. It might have tipped off the plan to some of the unwanted groups around the camp. Now, today, they had to bring up the large main thrusting engines very slowly. And with ever eye on the computer screen readouts, from the ship's bridges to the now very clean engines rooms. Not one of the captain's would risk overloading his engines, even if a wave of cylons were coming. They were not that close…yet to panicking. The Captains of those ships had been threw that game before, and that much panic had been worn out of the crews… for now. The mass of passengers that those ships carried, well that was a different story. As the cylons got closer, it was anyone's bet on how those crews were going to react to the two sources of external stress.

That did not mean that those ships were going to just sit on the ground, waiting for the Calvary to come charging over the hills. They had orders, that when loaded with noncombatants that they could somewhat safely carry, and had their jump codes verified for their ships. Each of the ships was to make it into low planetary orbit. This moved them out of the line of advance of the attacking Raiders and Heavy Raiders, at least for a little while. It was hopped that all of the attacking cylons fighters would be drawn to the ground combat, first. What the survivors from those attacks did, might make life hard on the civilian ships. That was why they had to make sure that the codes worked for their jump engines, before they lifted off of the planet's surface.

After making orbit they were only to watch and wait for further orders, oh and they were to keep an eye on their jump engines. If the worst looked to be happening. They could always say that they were staying out of the fight the only way they could. You know being unarmed or unarmored ships, in the middle of the largest battle of this new war. All they would have to do was lock there jump drives down again, by deleting the codes they had been given. Then delete and whip a few easily identifiable computer logs. It would be a believable story, and a lot of thought had been put into it. As well something called Plan F that had been brief to most of those ship's masters. It also was even a mostly true story, because those crews and the passengers they carried had no idea about the Earther Settlement on the planet. Much less its location, or the help they were providing the Colonials in and around this formally cylon controlled camp. Or the cylons would be so upset that they would just blow every ship that they found out of space, just like they had done in the first few weeks of this new war. It was going to be up to each ships master on what plan he would thank best for his ship.

#############

While Jammer and his team were finishing up on Colonial One, Duck and a team of five others were working their way through "The Building". They were the fourth group to be added to this particular task today. The first two just did not have the firepower, or armor to make it that far into the target. And there attacks had failed because of those deficiencies. Duck had no idea how many were killed or hurt in those two attacks. He had not been told, when he had been ordered out of the holding pattern his team had been in. And he had too much going on to ask that particular question, after the orders had been given.

"The Building" was very large, and no one had been able to get anything like a complete floor plan of the thing. No matter how hard they tried to get that kind of information for planning. Most of the humans, who had been able to get deep inside of this structure, were not trusted by the humans. Or they never left the building, after entering the ugly prefab from the insides. The command tent had thought that they had there was still three teams working clearing the building so far. Command had not been able to get all of the three over to this target at once. They simply had just too much to do, too few people, and more impartially too few weapons to do all of the jobs that needed to be taken care of.

It was only after the other priority missions Duck and his team had been done and things had seemed to have started to settle down. That they could shift his team over for their crack at the cylon ground based headquarters. Duck and his team were the Number four team, and this would be the last reinforcements to come to this task. Duck knew that Saul and Laura would not give any more support to this mission, until someone else finished whatever they had been doing. Or the ground battle was over, one way or the other. Duck was thinking that if anyone else came over this way. It would be to help the cylons out, and not his people. He made sure that he did not tell his team this, or even transmit it back to the ground force command tent. Some thoughts were best left in one's own mind.

When Duck and his team were diverted to the new target they found a building almost shaking in the light breeze, because of the damage being done to it. That damage was coming from the all of the hits coming from heavy weapons fire put into it, in such a short amount of time. It also was shaking, because of the outgoing cylon fire. At least by now, all of the exits were now covered by Colonial manned fixed positions. Those human manned guns were taking out any cylon that opened doors, are tried to come out them, or out the windows. At least the ones that could be seen from those few low defensive locations. They looked to Duck, like they were having a fine old time making cylons into small piles of spare parts. Take all you want, just don't mind the crossfire if you please.

Duck formed up his team under cover provide by a nearby space ship, and a Colonial manned but cylon built heavy weapon. When everything was ready, he gave the signal to run. And his team went in the same door that the first entry team tried to use what seemed like hours ago. It was a tactical risk to use this door. But it was less of a risk than going into a new door, and maybe running into an unknown amount of firepower on the other end of said door. From the number of cylons hulls lying around the doors, that were within the limited view of Duck. The number of cylon defenders in "The Building" had been great under estimated. Not every plan you make, will go as planned. The enemy always has a say in how things will turn out in combat. However this time, the humans had a lot more surprises than the cylon had in the cards.

The wave of attacking humans cleared the open space between the human areas, and the cylon building. Duck barely noticed the impacts of a few rounds around his feet in the mud as he made his way through the convenient hole in the fence. The next hundred feet were just a blur. Before Ducks mind could catchy up to him. Duck was crashing through the battle riddled door or access point. The door had looked to be heavy armor plate. As it turned out, it only had a thin layer of soft metal with a paint job that had only made it looked like it had been armored.

Ducks team was latterly on his heels, coming through the wrecked door. They quickly cleared each room nearest to the now full opened doorway. But all enemy units had been put down, either from the outside fire or the previous attempt to enter and take the building from its former owners. Duck was amazed at the massive amount of red on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Command had not been able to given them any real information on what was, or had happened in the building. Duck had no idea if the blood had come from human form cylons, or his own people. And right now he did not have time to find out or to care. That all could come later, after they had finished clearing the building. After about more about ten more feet into the building past the first room. So far they had only passed the fallen bodies of Centurions and human forms, and none of their kind. Duck was quickly thinking that all of the red spots or splashes must have come from the enemy, put down by his people.

They looked to be half way down the main hallway when they entered "The Bay" that they had been told about, and marked on the hand drawn map. "The Bay" had shown the signs of having been cleared of cylons already. It was where his team had run into the first confirmed "human" fatality. The Earthers body armor, most of the attacking humans were wearing was great stuff. It was also better than anything he knew of, before his people had come to this mud ball. Well besides the magical stuff form the scrolls or entertainment shows, he had watched when he was a lot younger and a thousand light years away. Some of the armor he had seen the Earthers used, was even better than the make believed items. It was not perfect body armor, and in this case. It had not stopped the human face from taking a hit almost square in the nose, with a cylon projectile weapon of some kind. They would have to come back later, and hopefully find something that would be able to help identify the faceless fighter that was died in the bay near a side stairwell. Duck stopped for a second and took a knee. He did not have to look to see if his team were covering him, and checked out the faceless body. The only thing he found was that whoever it was, their weapons and ammunition were missing from the body. He just hopped that it had been this person's team that took those items, and not the cylons.

After finishing checking the body, he stood back up and took the last steps to door that should lead out of the bay according to their limited map. Duck called his team to a halt and listen as hard as he could, to try to understand that might be happening around him and his team. For the first time today, he could hear firing coming from the floor above them. For whatever reason, the survivors from first or second team had decided to take the high road, and looked like they had went up the stairs to Duck's front.

That now only left the low road or first floor, for Duck and his team to clear of cylons. Duck's team stacked back up, and started the work of clearing the bottom floor of the building. The way they were moving, made this the slow way. But the safest way, that they knew how to do the job. They would be lucky, as the checked every room they came to one after the other. That was because as soon as a door opened into a given space. Any Centurions in that room the door had lead into, would want to join in combat. It did not take that much effort looking for trouble, to find plenty of it. The cylons would charge right into the waiting weapons fire of Duck and his team. In other words the cylons would charge into a door way that acted like a choke point. A choke point controlled by the humans.

#######

Starbuck was in position waiting for her intended victim. She was a very strong, very fit person, and she had been for all of her life. At least the parts of her life, which she could remember. She had been finding new ways to "kill" the Number Two cylon, which had decided to make messing with her mind his little pet project. Very rarely did the same move or moves work twice or even once as she had hopped. But it had worked more times than the Number Two would have preferred. She had been saving this one attack for the just right time to spring this one, and it was her hope. That this attack would allow her to finally escape this room for good. Now it seemed like this attack mode might now be the right time to use it. She had been kept working out a specific set of muscles, so that she could use this very attack. She only had to spend a little more time during her daily workout on those muscle groups. Besides it was not like she had much to "do" while she waited for the Number Two to show up again to play his little mind games.

After watching the group of Colonials entered the building, and living through all of the weapons fire they had thrown into the building. She had made her way to this hiding spot, she put her ear to the door and at the first sound of running feet. She shifted into final position, and waited for her prey to show up one more time. But the longer it took for her prey to show up. The more she was worrying that, she would not be able to hide in this location long enough to make her successful attack and escape. Even with the workouts she had been doing, she was still only so strong. She was not after all a human form cylons.

#######

Duck and his team were stacked up on another door, just like they had been taught with him as point man. He was trusting in the Earther supplied body armor to protect him, as he panted in the hot sweat soaked protecting helmet. With only one quick look backwards over his shoulder to double check that everyone was in position, he was ready as he took another deep breath. Then Duck opened the door to the next room for them to clear. As soon as the door opened Duck could tell this was a different type of room, than any of the others they had been clearing for what seemed like hours now. It looked to have been set up like an apartment, maybe of the type back on Caprica. Before Duck could even take a single step into the "room". He understood that the layout was pretty standard for mid income areas, almost like his parents old place before the cylons came back. He stepped across the hatch lip, and took a second step onto a landing that leads down to the floor set up as a type of Spartan living room. Then Duck hit the deck face first, hard onto the concrete deck of the stair landing. It felt like someone dropped a house on his head. Except a house, did not have arms and legs striking hard enough, that if he did not have his body armor on. He would have had to have been seen by the medicos. That is if he lived that long after some of those strikes. More than a few of those legs and arms were striking him with killing force.

Duck had been in combat long enough to let his hand to hand defensive skills kick in automatically, after being the subject of the surprised attacked. Now that he was able to block a few of the strikes. He caught a glimpse of a snarling face wrapped in blond hair, before it moved out of his field of view and maybe bites into his left under arm. After what seemed like minutes, he was finally able to get a hand around to the throat of the mad woman attack him. With this bodies leverage he was able to push her against the wall with a solid thud. It was hard enough that it should have knocked the wind of the attack blonde headed woman, or anyone else for that matter. Now they both would not go down the metal stairs, or over the railing to the hard floor below the high concrete landing.

Starbuck's arms had started to shake from the strain she was putting on her hand and arms to hold her mass above the odd and to her, fake apartment. When the door finally opened, and some or something walked into her line of sight, just like she had hoped. And just as she had hopped, the target had not looked toward the ceiling for any threat. Her quick mind told part of her brain. That her target did not look like any Centurion that she had ever seen. And she had seen way more than her fair share of the monsters in her short life already. Her target was painted and cloth covered vs the dulled metal finish, she had seen before or the "normal" street cloths the human forms liked. In the end, it was a target. And right now, that was all she needed to know. She was ready to act, and now she had a target. What more could she ask for, after all?

She released her weakening arms, and fell five feet to the metal covered head below her that was her target. After the impact of her falling mass drove her target to the hard concrete landing, she first tried to twist the head off the shoulders of her target. But the odd cloth but not cloth protection, was too great for her to overcome with some as weak as her bare hands. Then she went on pure muscle memory, and landed as many hits as she could in the shortest amount of time that she could. That was a lot more than you might have thought she could do. That is if you had forgotten about how all Colonial military were trained in hand to hand, and then added in how many fights she had been in during her military career.

Kara knew at one level in her mind, that she was not going to win. But giving up in a fight, was just not in her nature. That little bit of information just fed her soul and body, to fight even harder for as long as she possibly could. That was until a five fingered hand grabbed her by the neck, and lifted her off the ground like she was a rag doll. She was still landing punches, kicks, and even the odd bite, when the hand on the back of her neck let go all of the sudden. That was about a heartbeat before another hand was at the front of her throat and applying pressure, keeping her against the hard wall. This new hand pushed her against the one wall. The one that was the farthest away from the stairs, and metal railing with steady force. She did not stop fighting, until the helmet visor came up, on the thing she had been attacking with all the furry she could raise.

Now that the wild thing was off of him and a couple feet away, Duck could get a good look at this attacker from head to toe. Duck recognized Starbuck almost as soon as he had pushed her against the wall, and the flying hair had stopped cover most of her face. There were not many of the survivors of the human race left. Beside Starbuck just had a way of standing out, no matter how big the crowed was. When he could tell that she started to run out of juice for her wild attack. Duck popped his dark tented helmet visor up, so that she could see his face. As well as hearing his words, without having to use this speaker. "Gods damn it you Fraker, Starbuck. Will you just calm the Frak down for a second? If you don't. Then I will leave your dumb Fraking ass here, till the cylons come back to collect you!"

Starbuck was still trying to land a few more, but quickly weakling blows. Then in a flash she knew the human face looking back at her, surrounded by the cloth covered armored helmet of unknown design. It was not one of the cylons, and by now she had seen every model or knew the numbers that they went by for the cylon. She stopped the last kick that had been aimed for the juncture between his two legs and hips. "Duck?" With that one word question, she stopped the useless attack against him. It was like Starbuck lost all of her energy, with a flip of a switch. She was spent, and her muscles were little more than jelly under the hard outer layer of skin.

Duck smiled back at the woman, which no one had seen since the Cylons had picked her up on the first or second day of their takeover of New Caprica. He let go of her throat from the tight grip of his strong fingers, but he did not let go all of the way. Not at first, he had seen this woman fight before in the battlestar's only bar. With Starbuck, you could never be exactly sure she was finished fighting. Or about to go another round of fighting, just for the Frak of it. "If you're done lazing the Frak around, we are trying to kill all of the cylons. Before the old man comes by, to say hi to the rest of us. Do you want to help, or do you want stick around here and knit?" Duck used a head nod to the apartment they had been fighting in to indicate the area he was referring to.

Starbuck was stunned; it was too much to believe not all at once. Was it another type of game, the cylons had been playing with her? She just did not know, but Duck never would work with the cylons. She knew that he would rather die, before ever working for them of his own free will. Then her mind wrapped around the end part, of his statement he had given her. Her eyes went wide and her voice went high. "Adama is alive? Is it, an all-out attack? And where did you get the strange body armor? It's not Colonial military issue. Did you pick it up off a cylons or something?" Starbuck was looking at Duck so hard. That she did not notice the other guns, and people standing in the open entry way with strange weapons leveled against her.

Duck smiled, now that was the old Starbuck that he had heard all of the stories about. "Yes, and both of them were still alive. At least they were as of a few days go. One of the Four Basestars that the cylon came with, has left for a resupply run for those Frakers. So both of the Battlestars are taking out the cylons orbital forces, and we are working on letting those cylon Frakers on the ground. Know that humans are not going to lay down, and just die for them." He pointed to his body armor. "As for the armor. Well, let's just leave it at we have some new friends. Ones that we did not know we were sharing the planet with, and they don't like cylons that much either." He reached over and pulled a Colonial made Military pistol that he still carried as a backup weapon. He tossed the loaded weapon in into the air, and offered it flat on his palm to Starbuck. "I am thinking that you're done with your little vacation here? We can use all the help we can get. We could use the help of a Colonial combat vet in clearing the rest of this fraking building." He cocked his head and looked her levelly in the eyes. "IF you are not up to it, we will all understand. We can lock the door, and come back once we clear the rest of the building." Duck was trying to get any hints, if this was a good idea or not. "I don't think the cylons are going to have the time to come back here, after we have gone."

Starbuck was crazy, she had been technically that way even before the cylon surprise attack. She had not gotten better after the attack, and whatever had been happening here. Might have pushed her all the way over the line of workable crazy into something worse. Being some crazy was not a bad thing, to be found in the best Viper Jocks. Starbuck gave Duck a cocky grin that was almost looked like it used to have been. Then snake quick, she took the offered weapon and checked it for a proper ammunition load and safety. After she put the magazine back in the weapon, she check to make sure that it was in working order. Now that she had a loaded weapon, and possibly working weapon. She was thinking more and more, that this was not a game of some kind. Even Lebon was not cocky enough, to have given her a loaded weapon after how many times she had killed him with less orthodox weapons. Then she called out off to one side of Duck to something peaking at her. "Hey kid, we will be back in a few. Go back to the bedroom, and hide under the bed until we come get you. Don't worry we will be back. You know were the water bottles and food are put up."

Duck looked towards the direction the crazy woman was looking. He saw a young girl that was maybe three or four years old or so. The little one was standing wide eyed up at them, from the doorway to the kitchen (?). But she heard Starbuck, and ran for a back room in a blur of little bright colored dress covered legs. Duck thought that must be the bedroom. Duck looked back at Starbuck with a quick head turn. He should not have risked looking over his one shoulder. But he had, and now he needed to recheck on the crazy woman. Even as his head turned, one part of mind had already worked that there was no way that child could have been hers. Duck knew that dependents had not been allowed on the old Battlestar on the way for it to have been made a museum display.

Starbuck pushed passed Duck to one side, and then stopped dead in their tracks when she saw the rest of his team in the doorway. She had no idea who they were, but they all had what she thought must have been some type of body armor strapped to their bodies. But not one of the people standing in the door way were decked out in the same looking outer coverings. They looked like a bunch of escapees from a bad and/or low budget entertainment show of some kind. After a few seconds of blocking her way, they just opened up some space for her to pass through. Midway through the movement, she stopped and looked back at the still stationary Duck. She shot a look she knew would have the effect that she wanted. "Hey are you watching paint dry, or are we going to kill some fraking cylons? I thought you were in a big hurry or some Fraking thing like that."

Duck grinned back at the woman, and then pulled down his helmet mounted visor. He fallowed behind the best Viper pilot known to still be alive in the human race. He did not need to say anything to the rest of the team. Starbuck was legend among the refugees, in more ways than one. This had to be a good sign, sent down from the Gods that they had found her alive on this planet. Besides the uprising could always use another trained fighter now. And Bill Adama could also use another Viper trained person, after the ground battle was over.

Soon Starbuck was lost in an orgy of killing. She did not have the high tech body armor that the rest of the group did. And it had not taken long for that to develop into a sore spot, because they were leading the clearing and she was stuck at the back end of the clearing stack. Starbuck was upset that she was not allowed to be the point person for some of the clearing of rooms. That is until the point group walked into a well laid out ambush. A dozen human from cylons had set up both a well concealed defensive position, and heavily armed point. They had waited till the point persons, had walked all of the way passed them before opening fire. The fire had been heavy, very heavy and accurate. And it had the additional advantage of surprise working for it. And most of the rounds struck the two troopers that had been fallowing a few steps behind Duck. Those round had not been the softer "civilian" rounds but full on military grade loads and power.

Starbuck knew that they would have been killed, even if they had the super heavy and mobility killing boarding class Marine body armor the Pegasus had in her lockers. That kind of firepower would have killed fully armored marines in an instant of it sticking the front plates. Much less the thinner side plates that the cylon ambushers had been able to achieve. So when the two face covered troopers had not only got up off the deck that they had been knocked to, but returned aimed fire at the hidden cylons. Starbuck had been shell shocked into immobility, as she watched what should not be possible. But her eyes were telling her everything that was happening around her even if her mind was having a hard time possessing that incoming information.

Starbuck was standing guard watching down the hall behind them, after the ambushing cylons had been taken out. This was while Duck checked out for any wounds on his team fighters under that amazing body armor. She was watching out of the corner of her eyes every movement he was making, and taking as many mental notes as she could. After he seemed to be done with that important task, she walked up behind him on silent feet. Duck was about to send her back to the end of the stack, and he knew that she would go. For how long she would stay there, was a different story. Starbuck knew this also. But she had to ask something first, before she got a little further out of the line of fire. She had an itch that needed to be scratched.

She kept her tone light, but it did not reach her eyes as she tried to read the armed and armored Colonial standing before her. "Hey Duck. How do I get some of this Fraking type of body armor? When I'm not wearing it, I might have it to wrap my Viper up in it." The tone was joking, but it had a super sharp almost bridle edge to it, even to Starbucks ears. There were strange things going on, and Starbuck was not sure that her mental issues were causing her mind to play some strange tricks on her.

Duck stopped and did not send her back to the end of the stack, but waved the next two in line to move ahead of the non-moving pair. Those two people would be the point of contact for the time being, and the rest were the backup for them at least for now. The rest of the team started down the hall behind the new point, while Duck talked to the Viper pilot in somewhat privacy. "I don't know if we will be getting anymore body armor to borrow, after the ground fighting stops. Our new friends are shipwrecked on this planet, just like out of some entertainment show. And they only have what was on their two ships cargo holds, when they got stranded here a few years ago." He gave her a knowing smile, like a kid with a huge secret. "IF you think the armor is great? What to check out this little Fraker out. You know something about weapons, right?" He pulled out his other pistol that was a little odd looking, and carefully passed it to her. He was handling it like it was one of the original copies of the scrolls of Kobal or something of equal value.

When the Earth made weapon left his hands he started talking again. "Have you notices that my rifle is silent. It's not suppressed or just very quiet like a high end military rifle or heavily modified civilian weapon of some kind. But it's as silent as death, whispered from the lips of Hades himself." As he was talking. Duck was looking down at the weapon in his hands, with the love that was reserved for a man's wife or child. It should not have been given to a device that takes human life, or can maybe blow a small building apart with a burst of fire. Duck remembered what one of the Earthers had said. My tooth brush, sure. My spouse, maybe. Borrow my knife, never. This was the first time, he thought he fully understood the saying.

Starbuck was looking at the odd weapon. Then back to Duck, then back to the weapon in her hands. She knew weapons, for a female she was considered a massive gun nut. It did not matter whether it was mounted on a Viper, a weapon that grunts were slugging around in the mud, or what a counter boarding party might be packing around the access ways of a battlestar. She could use them, maintain them, and sometimes fix them. But only if it was something relatively minor. She took the offered weapon, and gave it a closer examination. "Yea, I thought you might have run out of ammo, but you just kept on going. After a few times, I just thought my ears were shot after all that the time in the Vipers on full turbo, or the explosion today." She gave Duck a half smile. "Then again it could have been all of those bar fights. Now I take it, that my ears are in fact just fine after all." Her head tilled a little on the last part of her statement. She had no idea how to file the information Duck was giving her. It was not making any since to her rattled mind. Soon she was going to go into new information overload, and there was nothing that she could do about it.

Duck gave a sly smile, all the time watching Starbuck handle the pistol like it was made of glass or maybe gold. He was looking forward to seeing how she was going take this next bombshell, he was about to drop on her now. "That Starbuck is a real Direct Energy Pistol, just like my rifle. It uses a type of battery to make it all work, and a bunch of other things that I have no idea how they work. You get anywhere from a dozen firings to two dozen shots. Before you have to drop the used battery, and replace it just like you would do with a battle rifles empty magazine during a firefight. One of the crazier things. Is that, it is really as fast as replacing a spent magazine for a trained marine for his battle rifle."

At his last words, her head jerked up like a snake. Her eyes were at first huge, and then they narrowed to a set of bare slits in her face. "You have got to be Fraking pulling my leg!" When she realized that he was not smiling, and that he believes the crazy stuff he was saying. "Really, how could they do that? Was the ship some sort Special Forces test unit or something?" For as long as she could remember. They had been talking about one day being able to field high energy, and the rumors that the highly trained and secretive SF always had the newest toys to play with first. She has always assumed, that they were just words to get more money into some ones hands for doing nothing work in some college somewhere. Now she was supposed to be holding one in her hands, in the middle of a firefight. While they were clearing cylons out of this building.

Duck knew that Starbuck would now not quit with the questions, and if he did not come clean with a few answers now. She would not trust him, or somehow someway later try to dig it out of them. And that distraction could happen at the worst time, knowing how Starbuck operated normally. Duck decided that he had only one option. "Look Starbuck we don't have time for this right now. Some of the down and dirty of it, is that, they say that they are from a planet called Earth." He held up his hand to stop her from interrupting him, he had been down this road a hundred times already. When her mouth snapped shut at the jester, and she gave him an evil look. "No they do not claiming to be form the thirteenth tribe, everyone asked that first. They say that there are lots of planets around, that are called Earth. They had never heard of Kobal or the Colonies when they made the first contact with us. They don't even speak one of the tongues of the Colonies. I know that, because I have spent a lot of time with them. So no, I don't think they are lying to us. Is that enough for now? After those normal first questions, the answers get really complicated. I want to get this building cleared of cylons, and we have a lot of work let to do. Besides, I would love to know what is going on outside with the rest of little uprising and how the fleet is doing."

Starbuck did not believe it, but she knew deep down that Duck would not lie to her. That is, if he did not have to. And the answers did get more complicated she was going to need a drink to hear them. "Frak no, but I wait till they aren't shooting at us anymore. I got to find out what they are really about, or it will drive me nuts. I can take some of what you said on faith, for now." She had not given any more qualifiers, after that short statement. But she knew that "for now" was a very time limited affair.

Duck nodded at the woman. This was a lot better than he had hoped, he would get from her. That is, if she kept her word for more than an hour or two. Duck knew that he did not have much of a choice, besides putting her back in her odd prison cell. "Good enough." He held out his hand and used his chin to point. Starbuck reluctantly gave up the magical Direct Energy Pistol back to its owner. Duck put it back into the hip holster, with practiced ease that showed that he had spent a lot of time using that weapon. Starbuck notice the smooth grace of the movement. Duck was just the average Viper jock, not any more. Soon the two Colonials walking quickly to catch up to the rest of the clearing team, before they cleared another room on this floor of the building without them. Then they were back to work as a team cleaning out the rest of the cylons in the building, with both glee and enjoyment. Starbuck was even able to shoot a few more with the borrowed Colonial weapon. It was not as many as she could have. Between keeping an eye on the strange weapons in her team's hands, and any threat from the cylons. She was a little over tasked mentally.

##########

High over their heads waves of cylon fighters were entering the thin upper layers of the planet's atmosphere at their maximum safe speed. They were supposed to be attacking in support of the few remaining cylons in the Refugee camp. This did not work out as planned, for the simplest of reasons. It was that none of the living cylons there in the Refugee camp, knew that they were available to come down and help them against the attacking Colonials. In the stress of the battle of the capital ships. None of the cylons in command positions had sent a message that help was still on the way, after the mess of the mass recall. They made a few high slowish overflights of the human camp. The overflying cylons craft took some random surface to air fire, which did little if any damage to the flying craft. Without out knowing where there people were on the ground, the overflying cylons were only using up fuel. This did not make the dog smart Raiders, and slightly smarter Heavy raider happy. Or the human forms at some of the controls of the missile armed Heavy Raiders. They knew that there had to be other cylons still in need of the help down there. And they were all powerless to do anything about helping them as they had been directed to do.

The waves of cylons craft could and did respond to the request of fire support coming from the two remaining Regimental Head Quarters Units on the planet's surface. These two were listed as first priority for any air support. But they also had two small Battalion HQ's that did not have a functioning higher headquarters that were also screaming for any fire support they could get. Before they could get into attack range one of those small unit headquarters went off the air. But only after reporting that their defensive line had broken by humans and metal skinned monsters.

The cylon numbers on the ground were dropping fast. After the first few hours of combat neither side knew for sure, about how many cylons were left functioning on the planet. It had not gotten any better by the time that a much reduced cylon space force arrived to help out. This was the largest cylon ground combat operation, since the end of the First War. The ground operations they had launched after the nuclear bombardment of the Colonies. Had only been low level clean-up operations made up of small units spread out over a whole planet. Not a major battle, with a force that could and did stand up to the might of the cylon in open battle.

Another one of the heavy defensive positions was under attack, that none of them had ever expected to deal with. Much less have to defend an attack launched on them on this scale. Not for the first time today. Another human form cylon was wishing that they had some of those old 1st Cylon War Heavy Battle tanks, with them on this planet. This was not how this new chapter in the war against the humans, was supposed to go. The last of those heavy combat tanks had been scraped years ago, when the newer Centurion model had been proven to meet all planned expectations of the designs. All of those three hundred ton fighting machines had been added back a lot of material, which was reused to make newer and more efficient weapons. That did not count all of the spare parts that could be re-tasked or recycled with their removal from the cylon order of battle. Those tank were well known for both there firepower, and for being major maintenance hogs. Even when they were just sitting in the motor pools for a few days, things just would break on them. Without having to support those tanks. It had also freed up more factories to build more Heavy Raiders faster, than had been first planned for. Now they were only a dream, to those few who remembered them. And now they all were missing all of that firepower and armor they carried to kill humans. The cylons had loved the idea that a heavy weapon, designed by humans was used to kill humans in whole job lots.

This cylons regiment had successfully beaten off the first attack made by the humans. There was no doubt, that they were Colonials this time. The cylons surveillance systems had been able to use its facial recognition software to full effect. It was able to identify six of the attackers, so far by name, rank, or given title even. That information had not been a great help in defending the base. But it was information, and every little bit of new information. Would increase the odds of the cylons figuring out, what the frak was happening. They might have been Colonials that had attacked, but they were harder to kill than any other combat group the human forms had heard of or read about. At least from before they started fallowing the old battlestar.

It had taken heavy weapons and lots of ammunition to get eight of the bodies to finally stop firing on the cylons. The Number One that was in charge of this base, had sent out two full squads of cylons to retrieve the bodies on the edge of the fighting lines. That had turned out, not to have been such a great idea and weakened the whole defensive point. That was because all twenty machines had been blasted into spare parts, as soon as they reach the first and nearest bleeding human body.

It would have seemed like the bodies were being covered by now human manned defensive control point. That was all the human forms in the headquarters bunker could work out. The cylon headquarters could see them on the surveillance systems, and try to direct suppressing fire on the occupied cylon made point. He was also working on a different plan, to retrieve some of the human bodies. He really needed to find out, why it was taking so much firepower to kill these normally weak meat bags called Colonial humans. The One fumed as he stormed around the tent covered command post. "It was easier to shoot down a Viper or a Raptor, than to put one of these two legged animals down." That should have been impossible, but the One's had already come to know that impossible was the middle name of the wet planet. And it looked like this planet was not done given the cylons more impossible to believe surprises.

#######

While the cylon was trying to figure out his next move, the human in charge of this attack. Was reset his captured cylon heavy weapon. Again fired short burst of 15mm round into the cylon base, with very little way of counter fire coming from the cylons. His group had the largest in numbers of Colonial fighters in the field, under one commander. However it also the least combat capable of all of the groups of human fighters. At least of all of the groups that were still outside of the refugee camp. They called themselves the Sons of Ares. Almost all of the fighters had been members of that club even before the cylons had shown back up. The rest had joined the Sons of Ares while they had been on the run from the cylons. They had quickly grown into a secret and powerful power block among the ships fleeing the cylons.

Once word had gotten around that the resistances had made contact with other humans, and they were fighting back against the hated cylons. They made a concerted effort, and had started to filter people out of the cylon controlled camp to join the fight to wipe out the machines. Things had gone well for them, at least for the most part after they had left the camp. The main reason for this. Was because they had weapons, ammunition, and military training of some kind for most of their fighters. That and they had a working command structure, and overall plan that they were briefed on. More importantly, they were all fallowing those outlines.

The trouble had started when they had grown into a larger group with almost all of the Sons group out from under the cylon's eyes, and had finely been able to make face to face contact with Earthers. They had been trading with some of the other small Colonial groups or teams for a few things, so that they could keep more people in the fight against the common enemy. But they had always felt like they were not getting a fair deal, with these trades they were making. So when a group of about fifteen "leaders" had shown up at one of the Earthers base camp to do the trading without any middle men bumping up the prices. Things had started to go wrong for both parties, and it had not gotten any better after these last few months. The Sons of Ares were a strong willed group, and were not that flexible.

More than a few of them had been briefed before leaving the camp. All about what to expect with that trading, and they had heard lots of rumors about these strange new people after leaving the camp. However nothing had properly prepared them for meeting them for real, in person, and in full proof of their strangeness. They had strange technologies, ideas, and they spoke a lot differently than anyone in the Sons of Ares had realized. The first time they had seen one of the wearable cylons, they had not reacted…..well to the sight. It was only the quick thinking on the part of the powered battle armor pilot, had stopped any of the Colonials from getting hurt. After a few of them had made some rather rash reactions to the sight. It had taken a few more hours to work out, and defuse the situation unfolding in the center of the Earther run outpost. Not all of the Sons had been that satisfied, with how that situation had worked out between the two groups.

The Sons had been able to trade the cylon salvage they had brought along for some Earth made items. But not for any of the crazy to believe Direct Energy Weapons, that everyone was talking about with strapped to their thighs. The Sons at first had demanded, that they be given the weapons out of hand. After all since they were fighting the Enemy, and they were the Sons of Ares. The most devoted to the god of war. It had taken some time for the Sons to regain some composure, after the facts of life were explained to them. This had been done in ways that were so blunt, that it had bruised more than a few fragile egos in that group. It was just too bad that the effect of those slaps on the wrist, did not last for long. The really big blowup, and the reason why the Sons would never trade with the Earthers directly again. Not surprisingly, had all been about religion. The Sons of Ares had demanded from the commander to the Earthers, force everyone to attend temple services for the Lords of Kobal. They did care which one of the Gods they prayed to, but they had to render honors to the Gods. They had not even gotten to the part that they would be required to do this every few days.

When they were not only told no, but then they had been asked what the Lords of Kobal were. This had been meant by the Earths as a poke in the nose of the Colonials. It had been, well Earth shattering to the Sons detachment to be told this not visible in jest. The Leadership of the Son could not fathom, what humans did not worship the lords of Kobal? Much less claim that they did not know about them. The group from the Sons did not have to be asked to leave the Earther managed camp. They were out of support camp ten minutes, before Major Weston and a heavily armed escort. Could come over to the disturbance they had caused, and kick them to leave in person. The Sons of Aires could not conduct any combat operations for several days, after the detachment had returned to their own command location. The shock had run deep. And for a while it was unknown if the Sons should launch an attack against this group of Earthers, the cylons, or maybe run operations against both of those groups. In the end it was voted on, to just not deal with them directly until the Cylons were whipped out. After that, they would review the information on the proper response might be. To what they thought, they might know about the Earthers at that time.

The remaining forty or so, depending on the weather group, still traded with other Colonial groups. None of the lower level members of the Sons did not want to soil their hands with such things as the Earthers. The ones that did the trading only did so, because the Sons needed the Earther built items. They needed them more, than they wanted to die uselessly fighting the cylons. They would not associate with heretics, at least not directly anyway. The direct effect on the Sons combat power, was very much in the negative range. At least when you compared it to the other groups fighting against the cylons. That was because none of the other groups of Colonials, would give up any of the high tech direct energy weapons. The ones that the Earthers had finally started to lend out to Colonial pure fighting units. They also would only trade the cheaper, and less effective types of body armor that they had access to the Sons.

The Sons of Ares, for all that they worshiped the God of War. They were not that well equipped or even the best equipped to fight a war against the cylons, despite their larger numbers. In fact they had only one set of Plastic Man body armor, four sets of medium homemade body armor, and the rest had only been outfitted with the lightest class of type of obviously homemade body armor. It all was a lot better than any Colonial made body armor. The sad part was that even the Medium class body armor, had been visibly damaged before it was traded to the Sons. That meant that it was not possibly be up to full strength, to protect it wearer from harm. The leader of the Sons did not like to admit it in public, but even what they called light homemade body armor. Was so much better than even heavy assault marine body armor, which it made the Colonial armor seem like cheap police grade crap. The good thing was that the Earthers were buying up any captured, even damaged body armor that was taken off of the cylons.

The one thing that they had going for the Sons, was that they had worked out how to use cylon mortars that had been left on the battlefield. They even worked out how to modify the built in autoguns of the Centurions into human usable weapons. They had a lot of smart people with experiences on weapons on their team, even if they were a bit narrow-minded on certain other things. These two items were there best trade items that the Sons had to offer, even better than captured body armor. It was just that so far, those weapons were limited use stuff, with everyone wanting the Earth made weapons if they could get them. Those weapons were rare, but still available for the right price most of the time. He had to trade four mortar systems for each of the damaged medium class homemade armor that his command had on hand.

############

The leader of the Sons had to shake the memories of the past off. He needed to focus on today and this attack, which he had been planning for almost a week. He waved to his gathered troops, and then changed the motion to a fist moving in a circle over his head. The knowledge military hand signals had quickly been passed around to the few that hand not know them. They were going to fire off all of the remaining Mortar shells, which they had access to. They had brought in every mortar bomb, which had not traded off to other groups. He could not see a reason to keep any in reserves, this was going to be the last ground battle against the cylons. Then he was going to use their large numbers, and punch a hole into the lines of the next cylons defensive point. It sounded good in his mind, but only his. The others that were in his group just did not know any better. Bill and Lee Adama would not have approved of this plan, not even if Starbuck had thought of it. The Number Ones had studied the same books that the leader of the Sons had.

While the last mortar shells were impacting in and on the cylon's positions, and all of the Sons followers were assaulting the target with a yell on their lips They were well into the cleared area, that a justifiably called the kill zone outside of the main base and behind the thin outer line of foxholes. That was when a wave a missile armed Raiders and Heavy Raiders made a firing pass on the now very exposed Sons of Ares. The ground based cylons had been so concerned about the defensive capabilities of the attackers today, and what had happened to so many cylons on this planet. That they had given out a mass, and all hand orders. It was for all of the air support Raiders to use all of the missiles to defend the ground bases first. As each pair of Raiders came into range of the visible attacking humans flying just under the cloud cover. They rippled fired all of their missiles into the small group of humans in repeated launches of those deadly weapons. The attacking craft had no problem accepting those orders. Not after being unable to do anything to support the cylons at the human camp. They were looking for any reason to attack with everything they had.

Twenty cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders made firing passes on that clearing within the short span of only ten minutes. It was one of the few times that the term "Over Kill" would be used to describe the firepower used versus the target, and the term was totally true. The attacking air supporting Raiders of all kinds threw just over a hundred and twenty short ranged missiles at the narrow attack frontage that the Sons of Ares had presented. The warheads were not as powerful as a Rift Earth made weapon, of the same type and size would have been. But this was one of the few times, when that would not have been needed or for that point matter in the end. The repeated missiles strikes turned the humans into so much red high flying confetti. As the cylon missile impacts marched forward and back, across the little battle field called a kill zone. The attacking craft were able to use their high tech targeting system to the maximum effect. And they successfully fired their missile for the optimal damage potential. When they were done, the Sons of Ares most fervent supporters, and some that were not had been whipped out. When the smoke had cleared off at ground level. The Sons of Ares, now no longer a group or power block. At least they were no longer an effective group in this universe.

Even if the cylons had been able to find parts of the human warn armor, they would not have been able to know what it was. Any non-organic materials were thoroughly mixed with the cylon made missile supplied non-organic contribution. With this "Proven Success" of sending two overflying Squads of Raiders to ripple their missiles at any given area. It now became the standard tactic for the remaining supporting craft. That was until they ran out of missiles after only seven attacks total, or answered calls for fire support from those ground based units. The reward from those attacks was not as much, as the cylons had thought it should had been. That was because the other attacking groups were more spread out than the Sons of Ares had allowed themselves to become. Not to mention that they all had a lot better body armor, to ward off the damage those missiles could cause. With the arrival of the waves of attacking cylon fighters into the planet's atmosphere. Just as the humans had wanted them to, another surprised waited for them.

###########

Major Weston launched his own flying support craft into the still growing battle for the control of the planet. The cylon had thought the Mark VII Vipers were hardest human made machine to have to fight against. They were about to get schooled at a whole new level of trouble in fighting a human crew war machine. Not only were the flying units Weston had launched harder to kill, they all were piloted by people who had survived threw hundreds and hundreds of hours combat experience. They all might not have been in those machines, when they go the combat experience. But that had changed over the last few months. The Colonials often called cylons monsters, and they had used that moniker for years. The pilots of those craft had not only fought real monsters so many times? They had lived through the experience of doing it. What they were going to do the under armed and armored cylons craft, was going to scar any of the cylons that might have lived through these events.

A wave of SAMAS, Black Market copy of those suits, Flying Titans, Sky cycles, and everything else that could fly. These human crewed weapons were launched on command from Major Weston, from different areas. That the only thing these launch sites had in common, was that they close to the Refugee camp. This was the first time, which these assets had been used against the cylons. For all of the combat experience, these flying combat suits had. They never fought as a combined unit. There just was no way to hide something like that, from the cylons sitting in orbit. Only the units that had been flying off of the Revenge had fought together before. But even they, had not done so in years. The Raiders and Heavy Raiders could both fly faster, and could fly higher than anything that had come to his world from Earth. Not for the first time, did Weston wish that that a couple of Gray Falcon could have been salvaged from that first attack on the convoy. That or something like them, had been packed down in the cargo holds of the ships. You can only fight a battle with what you have on hand, and not with the dreams of what you wished you could have on hand instead.

Even though the cylons had those two important advantages of the human made weapons. They had to come down to give fire support to all of those cylons, who were latterly screaming for help quite nicely. What was working for the humans from Earth, was that the cylons were short in a few very important areas. One was the shear firepower, that each one of these Earth made craft carried in combat today. It was nothing short of what a small warship like a Colonial Corvette, could have brought to the battlefield in the past. The armor each Earth made craft was outfitted with, was also as strong as those same multi thousand ton warships. Without the missiles the cylons had already used up to support the cylon ground bases. The cylons had to enter the full weapons range of the Rift Earth's war machines.

Some of the cylons did try to make a high speed run back to orbit over the planet. Each of the cylon craft already knew that the Basestars had already been blown apart by the time. That they had spent the last of their missiles against the ground attackers. In less than five minute of combat with the earth made flying machines, the battle's tone changed again. Soon it became obvious that the cylon did not have a pattern of what they were doing. Some of them just would try to stop the rising human and there attacking war-machines in almost reckless abandon. And others would fly out of the planet atmosphere to jump away. Some of the Raiders would first head towards the human, and then change course for higher attitude only to turn around again to face the earth made craft. In one of the after battle meetings held later. Some would think, that some of the flying cylons might have had some kind of mental breakdown of some kind. That would have been understandable to the humans after seeing, say fifteen foot tall flying Centurions rising from the cover provided by the trees. Most sane people or machines, should want to get away from them as fast as they could.

If the humans would have been able to ask the dog smart Raiders after the battle. They would have been just as confused by the real reasons for the cylons confusion. They would have said that yes it had been what they were seeing. The fly giant Centurions that had mounted Direct Energy Weapons, and were as tough as a small warship. Yes, it had caused mental impact on some of them, and made some of them want to run away. But it was not the whole truth of the situation. As with dealing with human form cylons, dealing with any cylon was never black and white.

The Raiders and Heavy raiders had a god that they worshiped, only amongst themselves and in secret. He/It was a "higher" form of cylon, but the human forms cylons did not know about this. And if they did find out about this "god" of the flying craft, out later. The Number Ones' would not have been…..happy about finding out that bit of information. The Raider's god took the form that looked a lot like the old Centurion called Model 005. It was just more, in every way you could think of, than the standard Model 005. When reports of their god showing up in the real world, had not been like by the Raiders and Heavy Raiders. They were wondering why they were on the battlefield, and defending the humans on the ground? That was too much for some of them to handle in there very small brains. It had started when a single Raider over flew walking tank, that the Rift Earth people know as a Glitter boy and a newer femaleish Glitter Girl at its side. The small craft had passed along the images to every Raider and Heavy Raider within the range of its communications device, as fast as it could. This had proven too much for their small brain, so some of them decided to leave this world alone. So of the flying craft had also decided that it would be the right thing to resist as much as they could the Number Ones. It would be that they or their kind should not come back to this odd and scary planet. That is if the Raiders, were able to make threw the on rushing wave of very unhappy Vipers. The ones that were coming towards the planet, and some activate there jump-drives. In a spot that only Raiders and Hybrids knew about, was only a few earth sized megabits deep of memory. In that rarely used memory space, notes were made. The Heavy Raiders under human control did not have choice, and continued attacking as the human forms at the controls of those craft demanded of them.

The last cylon regiment fixed defensive were broken by those battle suites. And a wave of fifteen armed Big Boss ATV's that had captured cylon weapons mounted on the tops. They rushed through the breach in the lines made by the heavy robots and powered armor. It was not about who had most numbers in the field this day. It was about the amount of damage projection, and damage absorption of each of the units on the battlefield today. The cylons were on the lower end in both of those categories, to day. It took hundreds or even thousands of hit to stop a single human at the run. Even then, it might not kill them or even put them out of action for more than a few minutes. The humans on the other hand, only had to hit Centurions or Human Forms once or maybe twice at most. And that cylon would be down for the count, and forever. It was a slaughter of cylons, the likes of which was unmatched in Colonial or cylon memory. It was second in the total number of deaths in a given day. It was second only to the first day of this new war against man. However then, it was a slaughter of humans not cylons that had run those number so high.

#######

Back in the camp, the fight for "The Building" was a rat's nest of trouble. Two kids were found in "The Building" along with fourteen other humans in various stages of health or closeness to death. None of the cylons in the building "Gave up" to the Colonial clearing teams. It was only well after the fact. That this was questioned about why this was, but not too closely even years later. It was hard times and hard people, were the only ones to live threw the war with the cylons. A few bullets to the head, was a lot quicker death for a cylon. Than the ones that the cylons had been using, against the humans.

In the battles that were out away from the refugee camp, over a hundred human form cylons had given up to their attackers. Their survivors were a mix of Two's, Three's, Six's and Eight's. The lowest numbers of the human forms to give up successfully to the humans. Were the Two's, with only three giving up the fight quick enough not to get shot by other humans All of the Ones, Fours, Fives fought or tried, unsuccessfully, to run away from the combat. None had raised their hands in surrender to the attacking humans, either the Earthers or Colonials. Most of them stuck to their weak weapons, and thin body armor unit the very end. The human from cylons were handled like any other POW would have been cared for, it hey were back home on Earth. But after the briefing about being able to down load into new body's, they were bound very tightly. And they all were kept under a strict set of Suicide watch protocols….just in case. No one knew if a resurrection facility had moved into range or not, by the time of the end of the planet side battles. The POW's know had seen too much to chance then doing something drastic, and that information getting out to the rest of the cylons forces.

Major Weston pulled up to the Refugee Camp in the same Big Boss ATVs. The same one that he had been using leading the attacks on the cylon units, that had been out in the field. The human guards did not know who he was, but at least one of them knew something about Earth made equipment. She knew that the approaching object was a friendly vehicle. And she let them into the now free camp with out to much of a delay or other issues. Major Weston had been given directions to the main meeting point, after only a brief stop. That along with the images that had been taken of the camp, and input from Tyrol, Duck and Jammer. Weston's driver had no problem find where they needed to go. He had just arrived at the preplanned point for a few heart beats. That was when a flight of Vipers, made a very high speed, and low altitude fly-by of the camp. It was just as he was getting out of the high ground clearance transportation, and almost jumped with incredible level of noise caused by the over flight. The sound was undesirable, and with the force of the sonic booms. The pair were almost enough for him to lose his balance while exiting the ATV. Falling on your face in in the mud and in front of you newish allies. That would not have been a very good way, to start the next phase of getting to know each other. It was just a good thing that he was able to save himself, from that the little embarrassment. He only had to hop and skip once, to make sure his feet were centered under him. As he was looking up at the high speed, and deadly looking craft overflying the now freed human camp. He had to assume that they were checking over the camp for any surprises.

Major Weston walked up to the two leaders. He first stuck out his hand out to Colonel Tigh, and then to an older female that he assumed was Laura Roslin standing by his side. The noise leave picked up again while the handshakes were going on. Weston was not able use the translation software he had planned on, due the overwhelming background noise.

While he was there in the now Colonial controlled camp he unknowingly made history, again. He became one of the few living Earth raise human, to ever see a space capable ship leave the ground. It was moving slowly, and smoothly as it rose higher and higher into the sky. Until it was no longer visible to the naked eye any more, or to hear the laboring engines shake the air. Major Weston was suitably impressed with the sight.

The two Colonial misunderstood the look on the Earther's face, as he looked up toward the sky at the moving space liner. Even they were impressed to see a sight. Which they had not believed deep in their hearts, that they would ever see again. But when the noise level dropped off some, Colonial Tigh was speaking slowly and clearly. "As they fill up. We are getting them off the ground, and up into low orbit." He pointed to the now barely visible second space-liner, which had launched from the other side of the now visibly smaller camp. It was to help the Earther understand his words, and to make his point. He just hopped that the Earther was understanding his simple Caprican.

This brought Major Weston back around, and he refocused on task at hand. Now he used, his limited Caprican. He had rehearsed these statements with the translation computer, and a few of the Colonials for a few days. "We have hit all of the fixed cylon sites. The only thing left to do, is hunting down the moving groups, and patrols that were out before today. How did they do upstairs?" Weston pointed up towards the sky, and was referring to the warships battling in space. He had to use small words, and the limit of his Caprican without using the translation computer software now loaded on a few devices. He had a device in his ATV, but until the back ground noise was lower. He knew it was going to be less than useless.

Tigh made a sour face after he worked out what the Earther had asked. And Major Weston was now very concerned, but waited until the older bald man started talking again. "We lost a lot of people, but the last report that came in. Said that all of our warships are operational, for now. They also report, that all three cylon Basestars have been destroyed. Along with most of their support craft, along with them." The smile on Saul's face, was one of pure joy.

Weston thought that there was more to be said, but the other man did not want to cover it just yet. Weston understood the reluctance, in spades. This was a very public venue after all, so Weston looked at the woman standing next to the bald man. He pointed to his chest before addressing her, with his back ramrod straight. "I'm Major Weston, you must be President Roslin." Weston put on a friendly smile, he had heard a lot about this woman. Not all would fall under term of "good", but most of it had been squarely in that category. "It is nice to finally meet you at last madam President."

The woman went into full political mode at a flip of a mental switch. As she was verbally addressed, by the leader of the Earthers military ground forces for the first time. "Yes, and thank you for supporting us to get us out from under the cylons thumb." She pointed to a large tent on a wooden frame, she had copied how Saul had addressed the Earther. It was the school that was now the command post for the uprising. "Please join us, it will be quitter inside?"

Weston nodded his head in agreement. He told his driver, and gunner to stay alert for any threat while he was gone into the tent. He did not have to say, if it was human or cylon was going to be a threat. This people would be alert for anything and everything, which might be a danger to Weston. It would not have been the first time that allies had turned on each other after the common enemy had been dwelt with. With that bit of business was complete, and his translation computer in hand. The Major fallowed the two leaders into the shack/tent/school/command center.

When Weston entered the tent, he knew this had been the school tent, which had been the center of so many reports that had crossed his desk. He took a seat near the tent flap, next to two other empty chairs that were soon occupied by the two Colonials leaders. As said by Laura Roslin, it was quitter in this location. Mike Weston powered up a thin computer loaded with the latest updated translation software that his people had. Weston gave it a few test words then raised an eyebrow to the Colonial Colonel.

With the computer now in operation, they did a repeat of what had been said outside just in a little more detail. It did not take long for new information to start to cross the language barrier at an increasing rate. Laure looked at Major Weston with a level gaze, and still speaking slowly. "After we get everyone that we can onto the ships. What are your plans Major? Admiral Adama has not been able to fill us in, on all of the fine details. He only said that you and your people, knew what to do." When Laura had found out about this information, it had rubbed her the wrong way. She quickly found that she did not like to be in the dark, about anything. She was hopping that she was hiding, that she was not happy being kept in the dark about what was planned.

Weston smiled at the woman. He knew that they had been brought in on the major parts of the plan, and he knew that she was fishing. That was not a bad thing in Major Weston's book. "Anyone who wants to help can stay on site, and we will give them a lift back to the Settlement. We are going to clean up everything that we can, after the ships lift off from this field. The plan is such that we need the make it look like you left the planet totally. Without much in the way of letting the cylons know how, or why you would do such a thing. We want them to wonder, what happened before, you lifted off planet running for you lives?" Weston did not say that this people wanted to collect all the refined metal that was being left behind, for their later use back at Safe Port Bay. If these two did not know that, then they deserved to find out the hard way…..later. "Good luck, and I hope to see you again when everything has settled down some back at the Settlement." Mike, Laura, and Saul all had a lot to do, and very little time to keep things together. They also still had a lot do in the fading light of the day. The war might be won, but only the humans would accept that, for now.


	29. Chapter 29 chpt 20 aftermath

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

 **Chapter 20 Aftermath**

Some of the more powerful members of the "Undercover Council if Twelve" had wanted everyone just to board the ships as fast as they could, and leave this section of space behind them. It had been hard to explain to some of the less technically inclined power-brokers. That taking ships that had been shut down for over a year back into full use should not be done. At least not without taking the time of checking those systems out first, or it would lead to deaths on both a massive and spectacular scale. The only thing that had finally put this argument to rest, was when those power-brokers were face with experts. That latterly had gotten in there faces. That had been when a group of ships Captains had put there foot down, about using there jump engines without some tests being run first.

Only a small group of Colonials were told that there might have been a Plan F, but that was only on a need to know basics. The full loaded civilian ships rose one and sometimes two at time, for that muddy field to take up positions with the rest of the now rejoined fleet. It was the first time that all of those ships were together in one place. At least since that ill-fated order, given by the newly elected president Baltar to land on that muddy field.

It took hours into local night, to get all of the ships back into orbit. But they were lucky, and had very few mechanical issue, none of them had caused a loss of life. If they had just taken off for deep space, like in Admiral Adama's original plan. They would have had to leave almost a dozen ships behind on the ground or in orbit somewhere in this system. There just would not have been enough time, to make them space worthy. At least not in the time, that had been available to them in the original plan. Now every ship in the Rag Tag Fleet, was going to be able to leave the ground again. Another difference in the old plan was the number of people in those ships. With the combat loses to date, the people who were still fighting the ever smaller number of cylons on the ground. Along with the ones that did not want to return to the ships, and volunteering to help Major Weston's people. This meant that those ships had more than a little elbow room with their metal hulls. There was more room now than they had at any other time, since before this odyssey had stated.

In orbit around the planet, the civilian ships were clustered closer to the planet than would have been allowed by law in Colonial space. While the two massive, but battered warships rode in a higher orbit above the hodgepodge of smaller ships. The pair of warships were there just in case any more cylons showed back up, late to the party that the humans had just given them. Aboard the ancient flagship, Adama was moving from command position to command position, getting an update on the butcher's bill they had just paid. They had won the battles against the cylons, but not everyone under his command would live to celebrate the event.

While Bill was watching his people work, an update posted to the main light table. It was a damage control report, and it updated the damage done to his. As the report show up, the head of Damage Control stated to give a cliff's note version of the report. "Sir, all of the fires on the ship have now been extinguished, and all of the hull breaches sealed." The Damage control briefer, visibly relaxed as the word flee from his mouth. "We are airtight again. We have confirmed forty KIA and twelve are still listed as missing presumed died, when the hangar pod let go. SARs are still out looking everywhere. We have lost twenty-five Vipers, but fifteen pilots have already been recovered. You already know about the Raptors. We should get the damaged ones back up at least partial mission capable in a few days, if we have the parts. Pegasus reports seven killed, and thirty wounded, in addition to their Viper and Raptor loses."

Adama looked over the top of his glass in the direction that the voice had come from. He already had the more detailed report displayed on his command table. "Any updated reports coming up from ground side?"

It was quite for a second or two as the data was accessed by the right member of his staff. A different voice spoke up out of the low lights that illuminated the CIC. "Sir, all ships are reporting ready for lifting, or already lifted from the planet's surface. So far, we do not have clear count on casualties they took down there. But all of our ships report air tight, and okay for extended orbit operations if required. We are also getting a list of ships that are reporting ready to leave system, and the ones that are reporting that they are not safe for using there jump engines at this time." The workload of the "Flagship" was about to get a lot more intense, as more ships fell under her command.

Adama was looking at the map of the local area, when a signal was relayed to his command table. He felt his face turn into a smile, and inside he felt his spirit lifting for the first time since he had launched. Colonial One was finally lifting off of the planet. The only way that the ship's Captain would have reported "that" name. It would only be if Laura Roslin was on that ship alive, and well. It was only a slight smile, but with a rarely used light tone he addressed his staff. "Complete the SAR. Have them work with the small friends that are still out there. The Vipers don't have as good of DARDIS, but it should be good enough that it they can help in the searching for our people. See if we can start getting any hard numbers on the ground loses." When a Colonial commander used the term "hard numbers". He was referring to having a by name list of those dead and hurt. "Contact the Chief, and transmit the data for the next phase. When he is ready, start sending the ships down in the order he wants and only at his orders. If there are any issues let me know, but this is the Chiefs show."

After giving his updated orders, Bill looked down at a display. He started working on the letters for the dead. He was looking at the short list that they had already been able to come up with. And it hurt, most of those people did not have anyone to receive the letter that he was going to write anyway. It was a long list, but it should have been longer by a lot. If that list stayed close to the already reported numbers, then the mission was an amazing success. Three full cylon regiments along with three Basestars all removed from the battle, for what they knew were died of his people? It should have given the Admiral a happy feeling, but he knew each of those names on that list. Plus it was not like he could report to a replacement depot somewhere for new trained personnel coming out of a military training academy on one of the main planets anymore.

Admiral Adama was listening to the communication stations in the back ground, as they contacted each ship to give it its' assigned approach number and landing locations. The Chief and a handful of other Earthers, had come up with the plan. They had the measurements of each of the human ship, and they had selected a hiding spot for each specific ship. It was going to task the skills of each of the civilians ships command crews, and it would take time to get the next phase done without crashing the ships. But the sooner they started, to sooner they could finish this phase of the plan. They were lucky again about the timing, which was because of the location of the Settlement. The sun was just rising for them, so that they would not have to do this operation in the complete darkness.

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The first ship to be sent back down to the wet planet, was a small cargo ship. She had a First Cylon War Raptor pilot with an impressive number of combat hours as her captain and master. She was considered one of the top ten with skills on the control sticks of a civilian ship. The small cargo ship made a slow approach over the wide grey wave tossed ocean. This was the easy part and the crew of the ships bridge was very relaxed. That is until she could make out the mountain range, which protected a nice deep water bay off the bow of the space ship. She was impressed with the site, and now understood why the Earthers had picked it. She was not able to do much looking around. Not after she had picked up the landing marker/lights. That was when she was about ten miles out from making landfall.

The landing markers let the captain/pilot refine her slow approach angle, speed, and glide path of her prepared flight plan. She kept slowing her ship down till she was almost at a hover, when the distance to the beach had closed to under two miles away. She could see the target clear as day, and she started to sweat. It was one thing to be told that you were going to enter a large cave. It was quite a different issue when you saw the "large" cave mouth. The mouth of the cave looked to have been so small, that she almost waved off his approach. After whipping off some of the building up sweat off of her hand he set her shoulders, she trusted the Deck Chief Tyrol. As planned and briefed, the pilot lowered and locked her landing gear. As soon as her ship had crossed the beach, at about ten feet above the ground and grey waves. Now she could see a light from somewhere inside of the cave, and she lined up on it. When her cockpit crossed into cave threshold, and it stated to get dark as the cold wet stone walls cut of the feeble sunlight. She started to get second thoughts as it got darker, but of course by then it was way too late.

With the dark wrapping around them, it was time to switch on the built-in landing lights on the small cargo carrying interstellar space ship. With the powerful lights now on, the pilot could tell that it was indeed a very large sea cave. And the interstellar cargo and personnel ship fit nicely threw the cave mouth with quite a bit of room to spare. With the powerful landing lights now on. The pilot could see that the cave opened up, getting wider as they progressed farther under the mountain range. The co-pilot looked out and down, from the front and side mounted windows on the craft. In the cast off glare of the powerful landing lights. The Co-pilot could see marks that were easy to make out outlines on the ground for different types of spaceships. At the far end of the cave was now softly glowing in the small ships landing lights, it started to get smaller again. The pilot started to sweat again, as her heart rate started to climb again. As her heart rate when up, they were at the caves was the widest, point. The space craft was directed to slowly turn around, and fallow a different set of markers on the wall. Soon the craft was almost back to the mouth of the sea cave again. When they were contacted by someone of the until now well hidden ground crew-members. You did not let something as soft as a human, get caught between a multi thousand ton ships, and something as hard as a stone wall.

The unseen ground guides used waving twin colored hand held lights, to direct the craft to its assigned landing spot. Over the next few hours, five more ships were landed in this one sea cave alone, filling all of the outlines on the ground. It was happening quickly, but it was clear that great care was being taken also with these strange maneuvers. It was not only stressful for those ground crews. The ship's captain had a hard time keeping their passengers on the ships, as soon as the ships had stopped moving. They had a few picked passengers working on those ships, and the normal crews of those ships. They would have to keep saying for the other passengers to stay on the ships, at least until they were given the go ahead to temporally disembark. The passengers were told in mass that it might be after night fall, before and that it was a "might happened" and that was the earliest. That they would be allowed to exit the grounded ships. The Earther and Adama, did not want a lot of people randomly walking around, without any supervision. Not when large landing spaceships were doing very complex maneuvers, in a very confined space. It was accepted that at first there were some problems, but after so long under the thumb of the cylons a few hours more was not going to be an issue.

It was a long and stress filled day for the ground guiding crews, and they had only two of those crews with the needed training. This translated that it was very slow going, but faster than anyone with half a brain could have had any right to ask for. Those two guiding crew would stop just before sun down locally. It was after Chief Tyrol had worked out that if the next ship came down, it would totally dark before the next ship was still ten miles out to sea. They could have continued during the night, after the sun had completely gone from this part of the world. But that would have been even more dangerous, than this task already was before you added the darkness to the tiredness. There are only so many hours a person can deal with high stress situations, before they start making mistakes. Mistakes with spaceships working near hard rock sea caves, means more of the few of the remaining humans would have died in a very visible and painful way. As it was they were able to nest fifteen spaceships into their hiding positions, all nice and dry and safe from the outside world. This was only about five less than what Tyrol had said that he was hoping to get done, before he had to shut down operations. When the Chief had contacted the Admiral about having to shut down operation. Bill said that he understood and would back-up the chief. He was just happy that the chief had the nerve to make the hard calls. Adama and his staff, would had to handle the interaction with the inpatient council members. Right along with the just as inpatient ship's captains that were left in orbit. Who only want to put their ships back down on, or in the safety provided by the hoped for hide sites. And they wanted to do it right the frak now. The rest of the fleet, minus the two warships, were feeling very exposed if the cylons came back.

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Laura Roslin looked around the Spartan but clean cabin around her. By all rights, she could have been on the liner that had been called Colonial One for now going on a couple of years. That ship had just been another Everson designed star liner plying the interstellar dark. All of that had changed since they had found out one little fact. It was that she was the highest ranking member of the government left alive, after the cylons surprise attack. That was until she lost the last election, and Baltar had taken it over. Then he had his office, home, and den of iniquities located in/on that once proudly named vessel. Now she did not know when, or even if, she would say overnight on that ship ever again. She had ridden that particular ship up from the planet surface when the time had been right, according to her political sense. But she had transferred off of that liner, as fast as she could back aboard the battered old Battlestar. The old Battlestar did not have room to keep the ship, in the one damaged hangar pod the old warship still carried. As soon as she was off the ship, and a few other odd and ends were removed. The great liner left the landing bays, so that it could do its real job supporting Vipers and Raptors. Laura could tell that the Colonial One's captain, was not "thrilled" to leave the protection of the Battlestar. But he know the warship had a lot of business left to do, and carrying the liner would make that job a lot harder.

Her reason for being on the Flagship was not just for some personnel reason. She had wanted everyone in the fleet to know what had happened on the ground, and space battle that had happened in this system at the same time. She wanted the rest of the fleet to hear it from her and in person, as well as stop as many of the rumors as she could with one broadcast. So around the Battlestars briefing room, there were cameras that would transmit her message to all of the ships of this little fleet. It did not matter if they were still in space, and already on the ground in their assigned hiding spots. She was only wishing, that she had been able to get some much needed sleep before the cameras started transmitting her image. She has having a hard time remembering when she had last slept for a full night uninterrupted. She could feel her mind starting to wonder as she gripped the wooden podium that was a prop as much as a cane tonight.

She looked up with perfect timing as the little red light came on the top of what used to be a "field" reporters crammers. It was to tell her that they were now doing a live broadcast. She did not smile when she started talking to the small group of people in this room with all of their news reporting gear. This was not a joyful time, and it was time to pass information to those that had been starving for news of what had been going on around them. The uprising had been as much of a surprise to most of the humans, as it had been to the cylons. "To the people of the Fleet. We have had a busy day today, I am sure you all have noticed. I wanted to put to rest some of the rumors, which I have heard that have been flying around the fleet. Like some Vipers in hot pursuit, or something. The Admiral launched an attack that destroyed the three orbiting cylon Basestars that had been hanging over heads like the ancient sword of Damocles from the old scrolls. This attack would not have been successful without an attack on the ground to pull all of the Basestar's Raiders away from supporting their mother ships in time of their need. They also needed to take out the ground forces, which the cylon had deployed near our grounded ships for the last week. The cylons had deployed a full three assault Regiments near us, all coming out of the original four Basestar they brought with them. You all know how powerful a force that is, I know it was covered in all your classes back in school, and from all of the briefs on your ships books stores."

She took a breath to let this information set in on the listeners. She had just used a lot of numbers, and sometimes that would confuse people. Even people who watch a lot of news show, normally only remembered the sound bites or article titles. "As some of you might have heard already a few rumors floating around or prison. We had help in our struggle against the cylons these last few months. They are group, which has been shipwrecked on planet. They had been here even before we got to this part of space. And we unknowingly set up our little city on the other side of the planet from them. Their story is a long and very complicated one. But they have been on this planet about two years before arrived, near as we have been able to work out. We are still trying to working a lot of things out with them, and we have more questions than we have answers about them. The same is said for them knowing about us. First off, they do not speak any of the known tongues from the Colonies. And as you can imagine, that has caused some difficulty. However it has not stopped them from providing food, weapons, armor and quite literally taking out ship loads of cylons in deep forest of New Caprica. From what we been able to work out, is that they call themselves Earthers, and came from a planet that they call Earth."

She stopped talking and held up her hands, even though no one in the room had said a word. And the only six other physical people in the room, had not made a face of any kind at her words. She knew that last statement, would jump to the fore-brains of almost all of the people on those ships she was broadcasting to. After what she felt like was enough time, she continued with her prepared speech. "They do not claim to be the members of the 13th Tribe. They told us, that only they come from a planet called Earth. And that name is a common name for a home planet, to the best of their knowledge and that we can understand." Laura stopped talking and put both of her hands flat on the podium. She started to project all the power and authority that her tired body could handle.

She looked right into the camera with a hard gaze. "I know a lot of you have been wondering, why we went through all of that effort to put everyone on board a ships, and then stay in orbit. We cannot leave this system just yet. I know that is what a lot of you want to do, but that is not the right thing to do. Not just yet. The crews of most of our ships, which we have called home for so long. Have not been allowed to look after them properly." She did not bring up that this neglect had started even before the cylons had returned thanks to Baltar and his friends. "This problem has been planned for, by Admiral Adama and his staff. Our new friends and members from Adama staff, have found places for our ships. These area are places, that we can land repair and re-stock our ships for the next leg of our journey. I'm sorry to say, that we cannot stay for long. I think that the cylons will be back, and they will be stronger than ever when they do finally come back. Even with the help of our new found friends, and some amazing technologies that they have. And no doubt some of you, may have heard about them already. I know a lot of you are still trying to figure out if it is true, or not, or just plain magic. We will find out more, as we spend more time with them. All most all of the new hiding places are very close to the hidden village that they call home. This will make it easier for us spend more time with them, now that the cylons are not shooting at us. At least not shooting at us right now. We will be interacting and learning from each other." Laura rocked back her shoulders and her back was ramrod straight. "I will tell you this, with all of my heart. We will not be wiped off the face of the universes! I will not allow that to happen, not under my watch! We have escaped Hades and Charon twice now. And I will not risk this happening, a third time with the cylons."

She was not going to give out to much information about what might be in there future, not yet anyway. Too many things were still up in the air and if she said something, that later turned out not to be possible. She would lose the hard won authority she had been able to amass, no matter how minor of a slip it might have been. She let another dine drop, and went to another bit of information on her little list to talk about tonight. "Now I would like to address and rumor that I have been asked twice already today. Baltar was been taken alive, so no. I did not order him shot out of hand, when we rose up against our cylon overlords. He will face a trial for any crimes, which he might have committed against the human race. I will try to keep everyone informed of this status as time permits. We have stopped moving ships back down the planet. As soon as it is safe, we will be moving more ships into their hiding spots. Remember, all will be near the camp, that the Earthers call The Settlement. This will be a slow process, but we will be putting down all craft, that can make the trip back out of the planet's atmosphere after they land. All ships will stand down for a complete inspection. This will be done by teams of very qualified engineers, the best that we can find among us. I will ask that you have patience with them also. The Admiral and his two Battlestars are still with us, and looking after us. I also will be meeting with the underground council members, and set up a timeline for new elections. I am asking you all, to please stay calm and work together. We can get through this, and back on our way to finding the 13th Tribe. Thank you for your time, and good night."

Now she waited behind the podium. She was just standing there, and holding on to the sides of the wood and metal thing like it might try to fly away. She knew better than to do or say anything, until she had evidence that no more images were going out to the rest of the fleet. This had happened to her once, and that was twice too often in her mind.

The red lights went off the cameras, and she relaxed a little bit. She felt a smiled come to her face, as she made eye contact with Bill Adama off to one side out of camera range. They had spent some quite time together, when she had first arrived on board his damaged warship. One of the crew-members had taken upon themselves, to escort her to his private cabin. Almost as soon as she had exited Colonial One. She had waited there quietly while he finished making sure his ship was ready to fight again, if needed. It was good just to hold each other again, even if it was for only half an hour this time. The look in his eyes held the promise of more, and longer ones to come in the near future. She made a note to make sure no matter what. That they would by the gods, spend more time together in the future. The one thing that had been driven home, with the cylon occupation, is that you did not know what the next hour might bring. And you had better make sure, you had made the most of the minutes you have left. She was now a lot less interested, in how certain things might appear on some political poll. Only because he was the head of the military, and she was the head of the now smaller civilian government. She made a mental vowel to make sure she told anyone that might ask her about that, exactly what she thought.

She still had eye contact with the man, which she had now fallen in love with. Now that the cameras were "off" and she was pretty sure that they were. She left the podium, and regally closed the few steps to the man. She pitched her voice, so that it would not carry to the other people in the room. "Bill will you be able to come down with me, to meet the Earthers Leaders face to face?" She knew that his ship had been badly damaged, but even she knew. That the hangar pods were always subject to damage, and modification made during the First Cylon War had made steps to mitigate some of them. But she had taken damage, and more importantly to Bill Adama. He had lost crew, both things would be hard for Bill to deal with.

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Bill knew he was not needed in orbit for the next few hours. He also knew that at some time he had start being an Admiral, and not just a super Captain of for two battlestars. He had been planning on working the issues, but something seemed to have whispered to him that would be the wrong thing to do. Deep in his mind, he was betting that he was going to surprise Roslin with his replay. His son and bridge crew could take care of what eve needed to be done. Besides everything these Earthers had said, had turned out been true…so far. Any major cylon force should still be a month away. But it was going against his nature to leave his ship damaged. But he also knew that he had more at stake, than just one ship to worry about. He was already missing the time, that he was just a washed up has been of a Battlestar Captain. That had been a lot simpler time, and a few billion more people would have been alive.

He kept his face very still, and tried not give anything way non-verbally. Had already planned for something like this, before the battles today had even started it just needed a little modification lately. "Racetrack and Halo are refueling and re-pre-flighting their Raptor. Saul transfixed while you in my cabin. He had been in the hanger for a while, and keeping an eye on things while they prep. I let Lee know that he will be in command until I get back. We have enough room for you, and Miss. Foster on the one bird. I sorry, but I don't think we will be able to bring down any gifts with us, must less to many extra bodies." It has always been the custom of the Colonies for centuries. That you should bring and offer freely some gifts, all before a major meeting had started. It looked like that might have to change, for at least the near future anyway. Laura and Bill were both fighting to maintain every bit of the Colonial Culture, at the least the parts that they could afford to. But trying to save culture was not a suicide pack, after all. And some things would have to be placed on hold for the time being.

The pair had walked into an adjoining room, and sat down in the comfortable pilots chars that room offered. They had a whole fifteen minutes to spend together. And they did not say a word the whole time, during those fifteen minutes of peace. They were just holding hands, and memorizing each other face. Until they had to leave for the only hangar deck left on the old warship. They were acting like a pair of teenage love birds, it was cute. More so, because they had no idea they were doing it in the first place.

When it was time the door to the pilot's waiting room opened from outside the room on silent hinges. Bill rose from the chair that he had been using, and walking around the chair Laura had been in, before she started moving. Bill stood and held out his arm, so that the thin woman could slide her arm threw his hooking it tightly. She looked up at the weathered face, and for the first time in a while she spoke. "Bill I don't think they will mind too much about not getting the gifts. We can always come up with something later, if we feel like we need to. You never know it might be a negative issue for them to bring gifts to a major first meeting. What if they were thinking that we were trying to bribe them, or make them feel bad? They have a totally different culture, than we do. I would bet that there are going to be some land mines, which we both wind up stepping on no matter how careful we are."

The camera crews fallowed the interplay, and unknown to the two subjects. They were being recorded threw the opened door to the briefing room. Then they were fallowed all the way to the hangar pod, which was when Colonial Tigh shot them a look that should have made them turn to stone. It was called B roll in the business, but you never knew when something like this might come in handy in the future. The two people left the military briefing room, and walked to the only hanger bay left on the massive warship without say much to each other. It took longer than it should have had. Both leaders had to stop many times long the way, to interact with people in the metal corridors of the great warship. There day had already been long, and was not over yet. Over the last few months, Laura had finally and truly understood. Why veterans would just go to sleep anywhere, and anytime they could. They were stockpiling it for a time that they were going to need it.

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The old Lord of Kobal was watching and smiled at what had happened. It had been watching the entire battle unfold, and the reactions for almost a dozen hours. It so enjoyed watching the battles between the cylons and humans. And he absolute loved it when a plan of his came together, so well. This plan or more just a detailed idea, had been judged at a low probity for success when he had first started looking at it. In fact it had been judged that this phase of the plan only had about a ten percent chance of a positive outcome. But instead it had come together at what any of his peers would have called, a super optima level. Now that it had turned out so will, the next phase had a twenty percent improvement on the chances for success without any guidance. The phase after that had even gone up a few points. The old god from Kobal, was now very impresses with what the humans had been able to accomplish. He patted himself on the back one more time for thinking about casting an alarm spell, so that he could see the battle.

Now he could give them some additional information, as a reward for doing so well. To date all he had been able to do. Was to give them some small, but vital things or information. That was because the "Others" did not like it, if you interfered too much with lower races. Even Gods had to fallow some rules after all. That was how this whole mess had gotten out of hand the first time so many human generations ago. He made a few quick, but not simple spells and cast them about the area of space/time he was viewing.

He cast some of them on a few select people. But one took a lot of power, and he had to cast it over the whole group of humans in this solar system. The idea for that last massive spell. Was that It would only work when two people who were sensitive, or almost being one of what the Colonials called oracles, were close enough together. The nice thing about the last spell, was that he would not need to be viewing his project at the time, for the spell to work. This would give him some cover, if some of the "Others" got upset at him. Again.

Each time one of the spells was activated a little alarm would sound to alert him of the facts of the activation. He spend some time thinking, them made an adjustment, now if one certain spell was activated it would trigger a secondary spell automatically. Now he was stratified, with what he had done, then he noticed something odd. It was that after the casting of the spell, to cover almost 50,000 humans. It did not leave him as drained as it should have. He cast another one that was not that powerful but only a god of his level could do. The spell would generate information for him. In a flash he now had a display of all of the energy being directed away from this planet. It had lines for each of the Gods, and which were getting power from the prayers coming from this planet and in order of amount. He was pleasantly surprised that he was now the second largest benefactor from those prayers coming from these humans. It would seem that as more people found out the name of one of the Earth made ships, his power would grow. The formal holder of second place, had fallen off completely list.

This brought a smile to the old gods face, he had not even notice the change. Besides, he had always thought Ares was an arrogant, jerk. Having all of his most ardent supporters whipped out by the cylons Ares had help make. Well that was just poetic justice. If his prediction spell was close to being right, this time. He would finally pass Athena, in the energy he was getting from this planet, in a few weeks. All it would take, is for more of the humans to see the little ship, he had brought to this planet. No wonder he was feeling so good lately. The strange god like being smiling, and left this plain to do other tasks that needed to be done. He had plans to use this growing power sources.

######

Major Weston looked up as the last Colonial spaceship lifted off the mud field. It was the ship that was there flying center of government, going under the call sign of Colonials One. This left Major Weston standing in, now what looked like a trash covered muddy field after a music concert. He had teams of his people, mixed with Colonial fighters already working on their different tasks. Currently He only had fifty people that were under his command, but they were supported by about two hundred volunteers that had not left the Refugee camp today. The rest of his combat power, was out looking for and tracking down. Any cylon that was left alive or more to the point somewhat functioning on the planet.

Mike Weston was personnel in charge of the cleanup and staging of this and the other combat sites on this side of the planet. He had small teams collecting all of the tent fabric and bring it to his location, no matter how ratty looking or how bad it smell. He had to give that order, twice now. That they were to leave all of the wood that might be laying around this field were eve it might lay. The only Colonial or cylon craft left in the open, that might be operational. Were three larger ships, which he had been told was some kind of cargo ship. They were joined by half a dozen cylon Heavy Raiders, which had been on the little landing field. All of them had more holes blown into them, than solid ships. The Colonials had set up a few 15mm cannons, and had taken those craft in a deadly cross fire. Those cylon craft had been blasted into a non-flight statues within seconds of the start of the human uprising. Those two types of items along with any weapons, spent shell casing, Centurion hulk, or other unidentifiable bit of metal. Was being collected and put into centralized piles. Those piles would be sent on the long journey towards the Settlement, as soon as any transportation could became available. The long day of Major Weston's was not over yet. And he was feeling like it was almost time, to break into his collection of energy drinks.


	30. Chapter 30 chap 21 important meetings

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago, when I did that. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

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After getting a PM and then a little chat with someone. I was advised that my story might be getting a little long. It was suggested that I break it up into two or more books, when I found a good transition point. This is as good a spot as any that I could find close by and it will end Book 1. Don't worry, I still have about four hundred more pages of story. Well, maybe it would be better to let's just call it very detailed blocks of text. Most people would not even call it up to a rough draft level, if they saw it.

 **Chapter 21: Important Meetings**

This Raptor's flight was not just to bring down some VIP's from the flagship. The little scout craft was also going to overfly the already grounded and hidden Colonial spaceship. It was to see if the scout's sensors could find them, in the hiding spots. It was acting as if it was any low flying cylon scout craft. As the small craft made repeated passes over the known locations of the hiding ships. The data from the DARDIS was being watched by both Skulls and Adama in the back of the craft with eagle eyes and years of experience.

Apollo and the Battlestar under his command had already over flown the area in question, while Bill was still loading up in the Raptor to come down to the planet's surface. Even with Lee Adama's massive warship systems, he could not detect the hidden ships on his over flights. He had gotten down into the lowest orbit, which was safe for his craft on the last pass. And he still could not find the Colonial ships that had already landed. Even as the great warship watched one of the liners all the way until it had landed in its spot. The Raptor could have kept over flying the area for a longer time, but they had a timeline to keep to. And they move away from that area after a few over flights. It would not have been very nice, or a good political move on their part. To show up late, for the highest level face to face meeting. That had been held between these two groups of survivors to date. Bill finally had to say this was enough and order the craft to make for the landing site

When the small craft made its final turn after over flying the mountain range. They were now headed towards the little town that was going by the name of Settlement by most of the Earthers and Colonials alike. The stubby winged, slab sided craft was being closely watched from below, as the craft approached close to the village. Systems fixed mounted on the warship, and also from some of the weapons of war that had been kept back to defend the Settlement and not mounted on the ships. All were active, and watching for any sign of trouble. These had been just in case something had gone wrong, or if some cylon had successfully slipped through the first few lines of human defense. Stranger things had happened in the past back on Earth. The leadership along with the Major Weston had decided it was better to be safe, than sorry. They had won a great victory, and it would be ruined if they had turned out to have let their guard down to early. And the cylons or another enemy was able to exploit it.

It was dark, but the little craft found the glowing Y without need active sensors, or even looking that hard after turning away from the ridge line. This "Glowing Y" marked the landing area that the Raptor was slowly closing on, looked like a section of a burned out wooded area. One that was just starting to recover from the wild fire. At least that is what it looked like, when seen from space or even the low flying scout craft. When the little craft had set down on the grass land, and the main door was about to open. Adama looked back to his XO and longtime friend, that had accompany them down tonight. This was a whole new phase for everyone. And it was not something that any of them had been able to read about happening before in the entire History of the Colonies as far as they could find out. This was a first, and they did not have a play book or anything like that to go by or call on for guidance. The rules were unknown, and everyone in this little craft, had found out long ago. That Unknown, could mean death, or at best a lot of pain.

Adama did not know it was a good thing or not, with what he had observed so far from these people. He was just trying to take it all in and keep an open mind. But he would be wary of a double cross, which might be coming. Unlike the space battle he had just fought and managed, he did not know the steps to this dance. He wanted to make sure his XO was still with him, and to see if he might have misses some signs. After all Saul had been working a lot closer with these strange people, and for longer time. Than he had, before he had launch this mission to wipe the cylons out of this little corner of space.

Bill made eye contact with one time and now again second in command. "Saul, these guys are Fraking very good at hiding. We still did not pick them up, even when we knew where we were supposed to look. It was the same even as we were going low and slow, with our full powered sweeps." Bill felt his head start to shake in mild disbelief, then continued talking. "You don't develop that level of skills, without having a need for them. I would imagine that they lost a lot of people, from any of their mistakes in learning how to do that hiding. Not to mention finding out what techniques worked, and what does not." Bill raised his eye brows to emphasize his points.

Saul did not say anything until he was outside the Raptor. He stopped moving with the green grass under his feet again, for the first time in what seemed like a life time ago. He shifted his weight back and forth a few times, feeling the grass moving and shifting under them. It had been a long time since he had walked on grass, and not on slick mud or a metal deck of some kind. After savoring the sensation for a few seconds. "Bill what if there are things they know about. That are so dangerous to them, that they have had to learn how to hide from them? Then I think we should take notes, lots of notes. Bill, I have seen the weapons they carry around. And I know what they did, with less than a thousand fighters in the field. It would have taken the entire Colonial Army, to take on the number of trooper that the cylons had on planet side. Even then they would needed all of the air and orbital fire support from a thousand Vipers, and with a half a dozen Battlestar battle groups for heavy weapons support to get the job done. That would cost a lot of Colonial blood, to do what they did as quick as they did it." Saul stopped talking, and looked quickly around him. "I think we need to find out if they know if "Those guys", that they are hiding from are near." Saul looked around very quickly again to make sure no one else was in ear shot, of what he was about to ask. "Did you read the note about what Tyrol had found out not to long ago?" That note held one of the greatest secrets, which the Colonial military now held.

Bill Adama patted his friend on the back with his off hand, but looking around the area. It was good to know that Saul was thinking along the same lines as he was. Bill's voice was calm, and a little on the quite side, so that it would not carry to far from his mouth. "Let's wait, till we are back in my cabin to talk about that note. No need to cause that much trouble, if we don't have to." The "look" he gave his friend was one, which said to say "drop it right the Frak now" without have to say a word. What Saul did not notice, was that his friend had been watching him out of the corner of his eyes, very closely. Bill did quickly notice that Saul was a lot more comfortable in a command role, than at any other time that Bill had known him in his life. He had a flash back to the time, that he had been shot, and Saul had taken over as the Military commander of the fleet. It had brought forward that Saul, was not cut out to be a Battlestar commander. He did not have the temperament for command, and as it had turned out. Fleet Personnel manning, and promotion boards had been right all long. Now Bill was not too sure, about that assumption.

The rest of the group had exited the small craft, while Bill and Saul were talking on the grass at the wings of the craft. Racetrack and Skulls were just coming out of the opened hatch, in full combat gear. Each of them had a sidearm and rifle ready to go along with the full body armor, they were sporting today. When the pair of Raptor Crew-members did the little hops to transition from Raptor wing to tall grass. They landed with a hallow thump on the grass covered dry soil only a second or so between there landings. Within a few quick paces, both of the armed crew-members were standing at the front of the little craft. But from this location, they could defend the craft from all directions more or less effectively. Only Saul knew how limited in capability the pair would be, if these Earthers turned out to be not so friendly after all. To Racetrack and Skulls, they thought that they had a chance in defending the VIP's that had ridden down in there little craft. Saul did not say anything. Sometime ignorance is bliss.

Laura and Tory were still looking around the area, like it was there first time to see Caprica City or something along those lines. The pair of women had already made the comments that carried through the air. That this area was a lot nicer place, than the area that they had been calling home on this planet. It was almost fully dark with the only major sources of light was being given off by the eight bonfires, which set up for them. Those along with one large white light that looked to be temporary set up just for them, was all of the light that could be seen from their point of view. This light made so that they could see the wall that surrounded the Settlement. The wall looked to be massive, tall, and strangely. It looked to be made of some kind of wood. The post were reaching out of the ground, ending just below the massive green bell of the local trees. They could see that it ran out of sight going in both directions until it was no longer visible to the necked eye. While they were looking at the wooden wall, a massive gate opened outwards. Out of the open gate a strange floating, open topped sedan looking thing. And it was making its way towards them at a pace no faster than a man could run. It was silent as it floated towards them, and all eyes were glued on the strange acting craft coming towards them. The Colonials had never seen anything like it in person. Well outside of an experimental military craft, or on some entertainment shows that were popular back home.

The driver of the strange craft was just another surprise to the Colonials. Adama had no idea who he was, but somehow Adama knew he was from the Colonies. The other picked this up quickly afterwards. That was because he spoke Caprican without any issues. He even spoke with a deep Caprican City accent. He looked to be about twenty years old or so, but he had been very well schooled the use of proper manners. He had made sure that he had opened the doors for all of the female members of the group, before returning to the other side of the craft. After all of the new arrivals had taken sets in the flying Sedan, the young man made sure that each had been attached into the built-in safety equipment on the seats. He passed out small skull type helmets with soft ear covering and boom mikes that were straw thin to each of the passengers. He did not need to show anyone how to put those devices on, and none had thought to ask why they would need them. In hind sight that might have been a mistake on the VIPs part.

The driver toke his seat in the front and on the right side of the odd craft. Just like if it was any other Colonial truck or car you might could think of. He flips a switch and the small built in speakers carried his words to them, clear as day into the tiny speakers mounted in the ear cups. "Okay is everyone set?" He looked as each of the four nodded in reply to his question. "I was asked give you a tour of the area before your meeting. I'm going to show you around the Settlement, and give you some back ground information before your appointment with the triumvirate. Just as a heads up, there will be some things you won't believe, no matter how hard you stare at them. I don't know if I, believe everything that I have seen so far. But when you see Plato video speech, it might change your minds about a few things. Or you might run for the tree line, while screaming you head off." He gave a sly smile to take any sting out of his words. But the smile did not reach the eyes. Those eyes that had just little bit of the haunted look, which was so common among the surviving Colonials. "Or you will think it was some kind of crazy, kind of high tech entertainment trick of some kind. Those are the three primary option, of everyone I have talked to that has seen it." He gave a nervous laugh, he knew who his passengers were going to be, for the past hour. That was just enough time to get over some of the nervousness, of being so close to the key living power players of his people.

Even with the fore knowledge of these strangers having access to a hover vehicle, and not only that? They had many different looking ones, which they could see as they were given the tour. When the strange, and yet comfortable hovering sedan was in motion. The four of them just looked at the driver, or they looked at the screen display on each of the seats back or dash in convenient view location. The displays would show additional information in perfect written Caprican, whenever the driver stopped to point something out. Adama was amazed at the outer wall that had been erected outside of the human village. Now that they were closer and the sedans powerful front beams reached out to bath them in off white beams light. That could tell that, it was indeed made of wood. But behind the organic face, was a high-tech looking concrete wall that was an odd shade of grey to the Colonials eyes. It was complete with a massive firing steps fitted and running along to the top of the concrete part of the wall. And that could not been seen from the other side of the wood clad wall. Bill looked away from the backside of the wall, to where there was also defensive points. They had started not far behind the wall, as prebuilt fall back positions, or maybe fire support points.

After the passed the open space behind the wall, and with it covering defensive points. Each of the wooden homes they passed had some defense capability viable, and Bill suspected also that they had large shelters with in or under them. It was pointed out to the visiting Colonials, that each of the homes in the Settlement also had a covered green house to provide food. Laura made a mental note of that detail as it was pointed out to the group. She was thinking about all of that those greenhouse. "That would explained some of how they were able to support the refugee camp with so much fresh food" she thought to herself as they passed one near enough to look inside of it. She also was kicking herself, after seen about a half a dozen of them pass the slow moving hove transport. Because they should have done something like that, all the way back to when they first landed on this planet. But no one knew where or how to start on a project like that, much less think about doing it in the first place. These people did it, and that was only one of the reasons, that this small group had been able to feed the larger refugee camp. They had skills the Colonials were lacking in, a laundry list of skills that the Colonials refugees were missing.

Each of the buildings they passed also had shielded overhead lights. They could see the people walking around the village under the spotty pools of light. They seemed like any other group of people, living in the wilds of half a dozen different Colonial planets. They even had little ones running around in the pools of light in the cool night air. This struck a chord with the President, to see kids running, playing and of all things laughing. It was like there was nothing in the world to worry about. It was the way that Laura Roslin thought that kids should act like, before the cylons came.

The VIPS slowly made their way down to the dock, but had to wait at the top of the tree covered Jetty. That delay was as some kind of cargo was being moved off the wood topped dock. They had no idea what the cargo was, until the driver pointed out the tail fin sticking off to one side of the cargo truck. He told them that it was a shark, and that the locals were going to process the massive animal for food tonight. None of the Colonial VIPs had never heard, much less had seen a forty foot long shark before that night. They had no frame of reference for such an animal, to truly understand the scope of the job. That is until the massive thing was carried pass them sitting in the open topped hover car ten feet away from the beat. Even without seeing the mouth full of teeth, they worked out that it was not something they would have wanted to swim with. Even if the planet had been a lot warmer, and cylons were not trying to kill them. There was more to this planet than they had thought, and if they had just put a little more time into exploring. Maybe the Colonials lives, might have been a lot easier than they had been. They now knew that they were going to have to invest some time into fixing those intelligence gaps, that they had let themselves live with. Like if they had known about these large animals. IF they had known about them, they would not have had to still be eating Algae tank protein to stay alive. It was just another thing to think Baltar for when one of them finally could arrange a personnel meeting with him.

It did not take long for the Driver to decided, that it would be faster to walk the rest of the way to the meeting held on one of the ships. It would seem that it was taking longer to move one of the other massive predatory fish than they had planned for. As the group of Colonials walked down the wooded topped dock, since the transport could not pass the large cargo truck further down the way. They notice that the oddly made dock/jetty was supporting and equally odd mix of water based ships. Near the shore side of the dock were some different kinds of submarines. Some of those little craft which seemed to be of a very advanced set of designs, to the walking Colonials. Next they a saw giant walking cylons that they were told often could carried up to five people under its heavily armored skin, and they were hip deep in the dark water. They seemed to be working on the underwater area of the Jetty, that the Colonials could not see from there vantage point. Saul made an offhand comment a little too loudly to suit Bill. "That he would not have wanted to that job, not with what seemed to like this bay of water."

Next they passed what was considered a small, compared to the water animals it hunted, ship. It also looked to be made of wood, and it was unloading another large fish like animal out its topmost full deck. They were told that it had been built locally, only senses the landing of these people on this planet. Then at the end Dock/Jetty, they saw for the first time, the two very large metal ships tied to the wooden top. Ocean going ships were not totally unknown to the Colonials, but they were not used that much. At least not compared to other means of mass transport. Well, at least not after a few hundred years, after the Colonist landed on their dozen of habitual planets after escaping Kobal. Large water bound ships were even still sometime used, but only in rare cases to move items. Which were very large, but only needed to be moved no more than a few hundreds of miles or so. Anything more than that, it was cheaper just to use sub-orbital haulers of some kind to do the job. However ships of this size just were not used by the Colonials and none were even in any museums, that any of them could remember reading about. During the drive they had been told about how the Earthers had lost access to their orbitals, and deeper space sometime in their past. Then they were told about the strange energy rifts that pushed them into over 200 years of a Dark Age. And death that was caused on the same scale as the cylons attack by those rifts. It was the stuff of nightmares and or cheap novels. That is, if it was true. And that was still to be determined in the minds of this group of Colonials, much less in the minds of the tens of thousands other Colonials. Each person would have to work out what they believed in their own hearts and minds.

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Suddenly Adama had the feeling, that he was on an entertainment shows about going back to a different time. As he led the group up the angled gangplank on one of the metal hulled ship, he could not help but shake his head at the feeling in the back of his mind. At the top of the entry way, was a sign written in two languages in neat block black letters. The one that Bill could read said "Neptune's Revenge", those bold back ink letters. He looked down the side of the ship from his higher angle, he could see all the way down one side of the ship and part of the way down the other side from this vantage point. That is when the other side of the ship, was not blocked by something coming out of the top or side of the massive water bound ship. Bill could see what looked like weapons mounts going down both sides of the ship in what looked like rows of single weapons. Bill was already wondering why they did not use twin mounts like the Colonial navy. But this arraignment left the center line of the vessel open for cargo handling, at least on the front part of the ship. Even he could tell that this was not the best use of space for a warship or even for a cargo ship. He could not see that much of what was on the aft part of the ship this one vantage point. After some thinking about what he had been told before he had launched his attack today. Some of the things, now were starting to make a little more since to him.

With a slight shake of his head he looked forward again, towards the knife point of the ship's bow or prowl. The weapons layout was not the most efficient design for doing either job, which he had been told that her mission was supposed to be. However at least she could do both jobs at once, and that would mean that you did not need two different ships. And more importantly, you did not need to risk two different crews to do a single mission. Already part of his mind was working on how he could use this information to help improve the over defensive capabilities of his own fleet. After all his own combat ship was part gunship and part carrier. He felt it might be worth some thought to see how he could improve the fleet over all.

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All of the sudden a few pools of light were turned on, at strategic points along the great ship, he was standing on. Now Bill could tell the difference between the Missile launching turrets, and what might have been Colonial type heavy weapons turrets. But as far as he could tell from this location, the other turrets that were farther away. Mounted tubed weapons of some kind. "Well they could have just been "normal" Colonial cannons that were mounted on a Colonial escort vessel during the First Cylon War," he thought to himself as he surveyed everything he could see. He again made a note to see if they would give him a better tour, later, with stops by those weapons. Maybe they could give him the tour when the sun was out. That way he could see a little better, and he would have been able to catch up some on his sleep he had missed over the last few weeks. This thought made him look up towards the sky, without thinking about it. For the first time he noticed the netting overhead. That the locals had strung up to protect the ships and dock, from observation from the sky and maybe from any space overflights. He was thinking about how clever it was, to have used those trees to help hold those nets up and off of the ship's hulls.

The Colonial driver/tour guide was still with them, and after a clearing his throat and pointing off in one direction. The group had to tear their eyes off the odd ship that had been spreading out around them, and go up one more level of metal stairs. After reaching the top pedestrian level of the ship, they were greeted by What Bill and Saul thought of as "The Officer of the Day" for this vessel. Then they were brought in to a meeting room that was one of the few rooms that could be on that level of the ship. The room they entered would have been right at home on one of the Battlestars, which this group were so familiar with after so long together. Saul was thinking that it might be like function, would lead to like form.

The room was already occupied, when the Colonials entered the metal walled briefing room. But it was not overly full of people that were in the room waiting for the arrival of the Colonials. The driver stayed with Colonials VIPS as they entered the room. He helps with providing quick back ground information on each of the Earther raised person. As the Earthers were introduced around the heavy wooden table, that dominated the room. Then with an odd little salute to the head of the table, he left the room without offering any such salute to Laura or the Admiral. That was when the computer, which looked like the one that had been in Roslin position before, was hooked up and activated on the richly grained wood top desk. Bill could not help but feel his skin start to crawl at the first test words to come out of the device in his language. He quickly pushed the discomfort out of his fore-brain.

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Captain Kelly looked across the table top, at the now seated Colonials. He was about to started the meeting when a slight vibration started in his jacket pocket. Thankfully he had shut off the ring tone before coming into this room. He had orders not to be disturbed unless it was a major issue. That meant whoever had sent the message to him, had thought it was very important. Weather Kelly thought the same about the message? That could be a different matter entirely. He slyly pulled the device out and looked down at the screen. He kept his face calm, with some difficulty as he read the display. In small white letters on the screen had said in very simple words. "2 cylons, 1 is the Colonel and the other is the assistant to the Colonial President."

Kelly passed the device to each of the other two leaders of the Settlement's government, that sitting on his side of the table. They each looked at the device and nodded, before pass it along and then back to Kelly. Kelly hit a few quick keys on the device, and waited quietly for the reply. This took a few long seconds waiting, and when he read the reply he nodded without saying a word to the other two men. Then he put the device away in his shirt pocket, it would easier to reach in this new location is something else came up during this meeting. The entire time this little dance was going one. He and the other two men had kept their faces as expressionless as they could. With the device now put away. He could see the eyes of the entire new group were looking at him, and their faces were telling him something. He was betting that they were thinking that, what had just happened was either rude or very important.

Kelly now smiled at the group, and went into political full mode to start the meeting. He always had to keep one eye on the computer, so that he did not talk to fast for the device to do its job. It was a skill that getting a work out and it was not just Kelly. Who had been improving on that particular skill, with repetition over the last few months. "Now that the introductions are done, let's get to work shell we? We know that you're on a short timeline tonight, with lots of issues to work through for both of our groups. So we have put together some ideas on rules, or outlines we would like to start with." Kelly waited, as soon as the device stopped talking and the screen was not moving before continuing. "Under your laws this planet is ours, but we will share with you. Planets are huge places, and we would consider it very rude not to share." Again Kelly stopped talking as what he said was processed by both the computer, and the Colonials.

"Next item that we would like to talk about tonight is that we would like to come up with a list of items, those items, which we can start trading between each other. We need to work out some kind of economy, which works for both of us and in extension the people we are supposed to represent." Kelly let a smile come to his face, and as soon as it was on his face he finished his line of thought. "The faster we get some of these basics rules worked out. The better we can plan for a successful future of both of our people." Now Kelly let his very fake smile fall off of his face, like water off a duck's back. "The one major rule that we have. It is that everyone helps out, however they can. We have a saying back home. "If you're not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem." We will not kill ourselves helping you and your people. If you're not going to also be work as has hard helping yourselves, and us along the way. We need everyone who can work, does have to work." Kelly was looking at each of the Colonials, as the computer caught up his words. He could tell that the Colonials were split on agreeing with what he had said, or not. "Right now, we need to talk about something which we have concerned, and that it might be more distressing for your people."

Kelly took a breath and let part of it out, without saying a word with the damp air. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see his two partners tense up a little. When nothing was said, he nodded at the guard at the hatch. The guard had been waiting for this order, and opened the heavy metal door at the unspoken command. As the hatch swung open, a dark haired cylon walked into the briefing room without having any restraints visible to the people in the room.

This event did not go over well with some of the people in the room. Human's eyes auto track to any movement, that is anywhere close to being in there field of view. And the metal hatch swigging open was by definition lots of movement, and all eyes went to it automatically. It was an evolutionary thing, that no matter how many thousands of years humans have built cities. It was still there in the back of the human mind, waiting to be called forward again. When the female enter the room, Bill Adama jumped up out of his high backed wooden chair like he had been ejected out of a viper. His feet still had not touched the deck, before he was reaching for the weapon that was not on his hip. His hand hit the hip holster twice, before he looked down at the empty holster. He might be older, but his mind was still very quick and he went to the next defensive option in only an eye blink later. As with the eye movement, all of the older Adama actions were automatic reactions to a perceived threat. And there was only one person he knew would be at risk from the cylons.

Adama but his body between the slowly walking cylon and female President, but his head turned serpent quick to look at the other side of the table with anger filled eyes. "What the Frak is this thing doing here? Why is it not in heavy chains? Are you out of your Fraking minds, just letting it walking around like that?" While Adama was talking, he was working out how to get Laura out of this deathtrap of a room they had been lead to. He was trying to plot an escape route that would not take her, to close to a very dangerous cylon. Human form cylons were deadly, even if they were not armed with a projectile weapon or blade.

The leaders of the Settlement had been expecting this reaction to come from the Colonials when they found out about her. But after finding out about the two undercover cylons, and that they had showed up for the meeting. Riding along with the leadership of the Colonials, a change of plan was called for. The meeting between the Colonials and this particular Human form was moved forward. This had been one of the pre-thoughts out plans, which had been on standby for a few days now. Now Kelly and the rest thought this was the best time to get it out in the open. They could always work on repairing and damage it caused. What was going to be the wild card was that the cylon might say. She had been the one that had identified these two as a different type of cylon models before the test were done. Kathy had earned the right to be in this room, and she was had already proven that she had a mind all her own.

She had been the one that had first named off all of the different models they had seen, but she had alluded to a group called the Final Five models after she had grown to trust the Earthers. This started the Rift Earthers into testing everyone, more to the point they were testing every Colonial they had come across. They wanted to see who might be one of those Final Five cylons models. It had been on the fifth or sixth group of testing that something strange was found. It proved that she had not been misleading the Earthers. Now finding two of these hiding cylons this close to the Colonial surviving leadership, it was very troubling to find out for Captain Kelly and his peers.

Kelly tilted his head to one side, as he watched the undercover cylons in the group across from him. They had acted quickly but at "only human speed" and in the same type of way that the Admiral, and this Laura Roslin person had at seeing the unchained cylon. That is to say that they were stressed and very defensive, all at the same time. And Kelly did not need the medical sensors to tell him that. What was noticed by the three leaders, was that the two hidden cylons had also jump out of their seats. And they also had put there bodied between the "normal" cylon, and the person called Laura Roslin. Kelly then looked up at the standing human, and matched the heat coming out of the gaze of Admiral Adama. Kelly meets the heat with a level look all of his own. The look was equal to the look Bill was giving volt for volt.

"Kat or Kathy is going to act as the representative to our governing body for the Prisoners of Wars that we have collected." Kelly was watching the facial movements of the military man and the civilian leader of the Colonials very closely. He easily saw the shock on their faces, when they heard the prisoner part of his statement come out of the little computer. Now this was an additional concern, after what the Earthers had heard about how some of the human forms had been treated by the Colonials. "Yes. We use the term POW's for them, and yes we are referring to any cylon who has surrendered to our forces by that term. We have a well-documented set of rules for handling prisoner taken in combat, and we will obey them." Kelly locked eyes on the Laura, he was giving her the look, that said. "Yes, I know what you did to some of the cylons. You might not have been as bad as this Admiral Cain. But you are a close second at least in the eyes of the people, on the other side of the table from her.

This time the voice that came from the Colonial side of the table, came from the President and not Bill Adama. She was now back in full political mode, quickly getting over the shock of seeing the non-chained or restrained cylon. A cylon, that had to have been fighting for the other cylons against the human race not too long ago. Before somehow being captured alive by these Earthers. Kelly now was starting to understand, why she was the leader of this group. She was already starting to match the mental image he had of her, which he had gotten from all of those reports he had to read. "Those things tried to wipe us out. And by wiped out, I'm only talking about every man, woman, and human child on twelve planets and thousands of defenseless and powered down ships. I am not even going to count how many outpost or space station filled with defenseless people. You should blow them all out an airlock, and be done with them once and for all." Laura's voice went cold as liquid helium, and it matched the look in her eyes. It was only getting icier the longer she talked. "If you don't have any airlocks handy, I'm sure we can take care of it for you?" The last part was delivered with some venom in her tone of voice, and an evil look on her face that reached all the way to her eyes. She was deadly serious with the statement, she had just delivered to the whole room in general. And she did not care how anyone she told about it, took it.

The only non-military member of the Settlement's council decided to put his two cents into the situation. Part of Max's brain was telling him, that he needed to let these people know something. It was that it was not just Captain Kelly, which was upset or otherwise, offended about learning of some of their actions. "We also know something about atrocities, and they are not the sole purview of the cylons only. We will seek out and take care of any, who had a direct responsibility for doing those actions. Again we have a set of rules and laws, that we will apply those who did those actions. And whether they are cylons or someone else." Max stopped talking and took a deep breath. "We will see justice done. We will also expect you to obey those rules, while we are working together. Again we have experience when people have two different sets of rules to fallow, depending on who they are. We know that if there are double standards on conduct, or enforcement of any laws. It will lead to trouble. And right now I don't think that we need any more trouble, do you?"

Kelly looked around the table, it was a good point that Max had just made. But he wanted to move along to get something else done, in case things bogged down. Or Kat got bored and stir the pot with these Colonials. "I think we can table this issue and move on. We need to set the ground rules tonight, not solve all the problems at once. Admiral, I understand you and your ships took some serious damage during the space battle. What are your plans, near term and long term that you are willing to talk about tonight?" As Kelly was talking, he was keeping an eye on the cylons that had been called Crazy Kathy, not too long ago. He was almost shocked, that she had not jumped into the meeting already. He could tell that she wanted to, but she was remaining strangely quite… for now.

############

Adama realizing that there was not an immediate threat, retook his seat. But he kept an eye on the still standing, but quite cylon off to one side of the room. At first he was going to say that he would not discuss military matters in front of a cylon. Then he remembered Athena, and how much help she had been in the fighting against her own kind. He made a sour face, when he saw the reactions on the other face. He knew that they had misunderstood the look he knew was on his face. "First I want some of my people guarding these cylons prisoners you have. We have done this sort of thing before, and we know some of their tricks they like to use."

Bill had to stop talking, as he heard the tone that he had just used with his own ears. Adama quickly got his breathing back under some kind of control. He had to close his eyes and really work, but he finally got his heart rate back under control. He knew he had lost control, and would have to work harder on keeping it under control better, in front of these strangers. When he felt that he was back under control he started talking again. "My people have more experience handling them, and will less likely be surprised by any cylon prisoners. They are your prisoners, and your people will be in charge. But I think we should have some of our people on each of the guard shifts for the POW's as you call them. It also would help us in getting to know each other, if we can increase the number of one on one contact between our two peoples." As he was talking Bill's mind was working on who he was going to explain this when he was asked about these POW's in a more public setting. It would not take that long for the "Colonial News Network" to find out about them, and blast the news to the whole fleet. Just as careless of the impact.

Adama leaned back in this high backed padded chair, and tried to soften the look he knew was still on his face. He agreed with Kelly. He wanted to change the subject now that he had said enough, but not too much. Now he felt that, he could take the line offered by the tall man across from him before he had vented a little too much spleen. These people deserved to know what had happened in the battle, which had happened over their heads. After all it had not been for these strangers, the space battle would have turned out a lot different than it had.

"We are sealing off the damaged section on one of our Battlestars, that was hit the hardest of the pair. The other Battlestar did not lose that much in the way of combat power or crew in the battle today." Bill quite talking for a few long seconds, and a little sweat built up on his forehead. He was fighting down a flashback of the damage and the dead on his flagship. "We were lucky that the damage area was still mostly set up for a museum on the one ship. So we did not lose much beside close in defense weapons, there crews, and some others." Bill had to stop talking as he started to see the face of each crewman he had just lost all over again. "The warships are stable for now, but she is not in the greatest of shape right now. My plan for right now is too focused on making sure each of the civilian ships engines, life support, accommodations, and hull will be ready for the long trip we need to make. After that, then we will start to shift some resources to fixing the worst of the battle damage. While we are doing that, I will have to see about trying to replacing all of the ammunition we spent today. The last two might not be done here, but on the way after leaving this system." Bill thought he saw some concern on the faces across from him. Bill gave tired shoulder shrug, and finished what his line of thinking was. "It's not the first time we had to do something like that. It was the way we did it on the trip out from out space." Bill was not happy with the plan, but it was the only one he had.

########

Sophia Ryan spoke form her seat against the wall, behind the group of three leaders. "Trip? You have a flight plan of some kind, to where you want to go? Can we see this trip plan?" Her eyes were not wide with wonderment. More like they were black slits, as if someone was trying to sell her a bridge to nowhere. Normally Sophia would not have spoken up in a meeting like this. But her time as the acting captain of the Lucky Find had slowly gotten her to spread her wings. The spreading had increase even more over the last few months of fighting the cylons. It was just too bad that she would never have a ship of her own.

Adama re-read the text of what the thin woman against the wall had said to the group. He then looked back to his people, before going deeper into that sensitive subject. He was not going to go into all the details, as most people knew them, in this one meeting. Maybe later he would go into the last mission Starbuck had gone on for him. It had been to get the Arrow of Apollo, and a few other items. Bill just decided to gloss over the mission, for now. "We had a mission that we ran back to our home planets, while we were hiding from the cylons out here."

Bill wanted to give a hint without outright lying, that they had not just been hiding and waiting for something to happen on New Caprica. "We were able to get a dozen different star constellations, which we think are related to the Earth that we are looking for. We have been working to try find the reference stars, to plot a course using those constellations we found." Bill sucked in his lower lip and shot a glance over to Laura as he talked. "It had turned out to be a lot harder of a job than we first anticipated. We only have been working on it for a few weeks so far. Do you have information from your Earth, in relation to major key stellar location in your local stellar group?" He had no idea what the response would be to his question, but sometimes you had to roll a hard six to get anywhere. Bill had nothing to lose if the answer was negative, but that had never crossed his mind when the words were falling out of his mouth. It just kind of popped into his head to see what happened. Maybe it would put them on their back feet, and give his people more time to recover their footing.

Sophia nodded her head up and down, but was only slight move of her head. She was thinking as she was talking, and that was risky. "We lost most of our stellar knowledge during the dark age. But we need to have some knowledge to ply the seas of our world, so we have some navigational charts between the two ships." She gave a deep frown, but she did not stop talking. "That is one of our weaker areas in knowledge, or at least it is one of the ones that we know about." She looked at Kelly, and her lips were a thin line on her face. "Dexter has been spending time studying the navigation books off and on, for a while now. And between him and maybe the Stapps? They could be of some help working with some of their own navigators." She did not need to go into how it was the Stapps, who had made there telescopes to spy on the Colonials and cylons. This was only the first meeting, details could come out later.

Kelly nodded to the woman and Sophia started typing on a small hand held device with the tips of her fingers. She had been working with this group for so long, that she knew when she had been given a directive without the words being given out loud. Kelly went back to the task at hand. "Let's bring Dexter in tonight, and talk to him. We can lay the ground work tonight to see how we can work together on that subject." He looked back at Adama. "Sir, the next question is sensitive, and if you don't fill the need to talk about that at this time. I understand, but how are you set for expendables ammunition? We might be able to help out some in that area. We don't know if we can help, if we don't ask for it." Kelly was not going to tell them what he was willing to trade in that category. The Settlement's stockpile of expendable weapons had taken a good sized hit this week. It could have been a lot bigger of a hit, but Major Weston had kept it lower than it could have been. And lower that Kelly had the right to expect.

Adama looked at Saul before looking back across the table again. Captain Kelly was right. It was a military sensitive question, and one that the Earthers might be able to use to get something in return from his people. Then again they had just offered to help with whatever data and personnel that had anything close to the right knowledge set, to help them find the Earth they were looking for. It was only right that he should show some of his cards to the other team. After all it would not take long for people as sharp as these seemed to be, to find out the information all on their own. "We used all of our heavy ordnance that we were able to collect, and or make, since we left the home worlds today." What he just had said, was they were out of nuclear warheads, and there big anti-basestar weapon. That did not mean that the two Battlestars were defenseless. It was only that they did not have any more of the heavy hitters to do battle with. Bill talking and he had a little grin on his face. "Now if you have three or four nuclear warheads, which are just lying around. And that you are not planning on using in the near future." He gave an even slyer smile to the other man, and looked him deed in the eyes. "We could find somewhere to store them for you."

However Saul was not going to limit the request to one type of weapon, if they were willing to open up their arms lockers like they seemed to be. He already had a few reports on what these people had been using against the fixed cylon defensive points, and he had been very impressed. He knew that Bill had not had time to read those reports from the ground fighting point of view. So he went in with both feet, now that he thought the door might be have opened just a crack. "If you have some of those warheads that you all used on the cylon regimental Headquarters, but larger. I think we could figure out how to get them onto a nice juice target." He was smiling as he said it, but it was not a friendly smile. It was more like what a shark might have given a tuna, just before having a taste test. The idea of a pocket nuk like weapons, that the cylon Baseships had never had seen before. And that was most likely that the cylons would not be able to separate from other warhead, looked great to Saul's mind. At least it did on paper. Plus the longer a weapon like that sat in one of their ships, the longer that they could take in study it.

What Saul and Bill did not know, was that those types of weapons belonged to or were under the control of Captain Kelly. And that had been, since he had bought then before coming to this planet. He had released some of the heavy weapons to support Major Weston, because the Major said that it would lower the total number of human casualties if they were used them on the right targets. It was up to him to give that information out as the Ship's Captain, not as one of the three leaders of the village. Kelly let a slight smile cross his face and gave a little hint, but not much of a gift of knowledge. "We have some heavy weapons, but let's just keep them were they are for right now. We have a very limited supply of those types of warheads, and the missile bodies they use to get to the targets are equally hard to find. What we had been talking about was something you might already have some experience with. We have some captured cylon missiles, ammunition, and some other types of their ground weapons. I was told that your vessels and other weapons systems can use them. We can send a complete list to you in a few days. If you can't use them, then we will just keep them as testing articles or something. I know my people seem to always want to do testing of one sort or the other all the time on something they fill is going to be of great importance." The term he had used had been "Earth shattering", but the computer had changed it for better translation. The little computer, once lost on the CIC was learning.

Kelly folded his hand in front of him, and put them on the wooden table top. He was working out what to say in his mind, this is something that they had only talked about a few times. Kelly did not want to have a misunderstanding, so soon. But this was to important, not to pursue at least a little bit right now. He had seen his fellow leaders tense up a little, when the Admiral had said something about building heavy weapons. With the talk of his heavy weapons breaking the ice, Kelly touched on the topic. "You said that you made heavy weapons after leaving your home planets. Does that mean that you were able to "make" some nuclear warheads? Or did you just have to make the thruster bodies, or seeking systems for warheads you already had on hand?" Kelly was hoping that the translation computer had not mess this up.

Adama smiled, but his heart stopped and his mind went into overdrive right along with Kelly's. His breathing was getting a little more rapid, and a little more sweat formed around his temple. Saul and Roslin notice the change in Bill, and both were worried that something was wrong. Bill patted Roslin's hand under the table lightly, to let her know that it was okay. He was getting the rush and the flush, because he thought he might know where this line of questioning was going. If he was right, that would be a very good thing for his people. Bill dropped his chin and took his time, in coming up with a reply to what he had been asked.

Finally Bill Adama looked away from the computer screen and locked eyes with Kelly. And he forces his breathing to slow down some more, and for his voice to remain level but at the same time not threatening. "We have the skills, and the machines to do all three of those tasks. However we did not have enough of the raw materials, which we need to make that many warheads. We might have enough on hand to make one or maybe two of the smaller type of warheads. Those are the ones that our Viper or Raptors could use as an anti-shipping weapon. What we need is a supply of Ανάγκη and και λιθίου πηλό to make more of the heavy anti-shipping warheads." Towards the end of his little explanation, Bills breathing and heart rate started to speed up again. There was no way he could stop it from happening.

Kelly looked at the computer, and then back to the Admiral. And then he shakes his head from side to side slowly. He knew he had a confused look on his face, and he lit it stay there. It might help explain that was an issue. "I'm sorry Admiral, could you repeat that again? The computer could not come up with something to match what you said. What did you need to a supply of? We know about the different uranium ores that are natural, and man-made. Is that what you need?" Kelly was dying for more information. And it was not coming to him nearly fast enough for his taste.

Before Bill could say anymore, one of the people who had not been at the main table, but along the side wall of the meeting. Now was up and rapidly punching a few keys, on the odd little computer sitting in the middle of them. The young woman had not been introduced when the Colonials had entered the room, and Adama had tuned her out as soon as they had taken their seats. She was looking at a paper book that did not have clipped corners, and spent the next two or three minutes pushing white square keys on the odd little computer. No one said anything as she worked on the device. When she was done without saying a word, but gave Kelly a thumb up signal. Bill assumed this meant that she, or the computer was ready to continue.

The Admiral looked strangely at them, and he felt a little smile come to his face. He had gotten so use to what his people had considered high technology, with all of his years in space and fighting or even in training events the Colonial Navy used. To find out that sometimes these Earths tech did not work right all of the time came as no surprise to him. But somehow it came as a kind of comfort to him or one part of his brain. After reading and seeing so much of their crazy technology, seeing that it was not perfect, made them seem more "normal". At that point Bill was pretty sure that things would work out between these two groups of humans. At least baring someone, on either side, doing something monumentally stupid that could not be repaired.

Bill was surprised again, that the strangers from another culture, and that had not been in contact for so long with his people. That they did not have any records of the Colonies of Kobal, but they would still have gestures that meant the same thing to his people. It was with that friendly smile that he spoke slowly once more to the machine and said "Ανάγκη 235and και λιθίου πηλό." This time the machine was quite for a few seconds, and then it said "Oralloy 235 and a Lithium rich clay" in English. Bill had no idea what was said, but whatever it was. The other leaders, seemed to be shocked but in a good way somehow with the shock.

Kelly turned and looked at the screen with narrow eyes, and made some notes on a small computer built into the desk at his station. "Okay, now that I understand." After typing some more, on his computer pad. When he was done, he made eye contact first with his peers then with the Colonials on the other side of the desk. This was some incredible news. "We use the same types of stuff or elements to come up with fuel for my ships engines and for our larger class of war-machines." He was about to say more, when someone knocked hard on the metal hatch to announced that they would like to enter the meeting.

This stopped everyone from talking any more. Then everyone from both groups turned in their chairs, and looked toward the gray metal hatch on one side of the room. The inside guard opened the door, but only after checking with the guard on the other side of the hatch via a small phone fixed mounted on his side of the hatch. This outer guard person had not taken that position, until the meeting had started with the cylon, named Kathy sitting in. She was trusted, but no one was taking any chances on either side.

##########

Dexter entered the briefing room with his back straight, and looking at a spot two feet above the heads of Captain Kelly and the rest of the Triumvirate. He had never been comfortable with talking to strangers. Much less power players, like the ones he knew were in this room. He had been that way, even before they had come to this cold planet. Since they had been here, it had only gotten worse, at least until he got used to the people around him then he was better. Tonight he looked like a long tailed cat, in a room full of randomly moving rocking chairs and falling feet. He wiped his damp palms on his pants legs as he closed the distance from the hatch, to the meeting desk. Then he said a greeting, first in Caprican then in English to the room as a whole. He had not been told to do that, it just seem like it was the right thing to do.

Captain Kelly knew that Dexter would not like being in the meeting, but he pointed to an empty chair off to one side all the same. "Dexter, please have a seat and join us. We have a few questions that you might have valid input in, which will help us." He pointed to an empty chair at one end of the table, that Kelly had intentional left empty for this meeting. It was just in case they needed to bring in a SME (subject matter expert) of something into the meeting with these people. He had a good idea that it would happen tonight, but not this quickly. Dexter just had the bad luck to be the first one to be called into this meeting between Colonial and Earther leadership. Kelly was betting that he would not be the last one he would be needed to come in, before they broke up this meeting for the night.

Dexter really wanted two things, and both of them were something that he knew that he really could do right now. In no particular order, he wanted a large alcoholic drink, which could also be used to remove paint. And the other one was to being somewhere else. Anywhere else would have been fine with him, as long as it was not in this room right now. His voice sounded different to his ears as he spoke towards his ex-commander.

"I will try to be as helpful as I can, Sir." Dexter took the offered seat and did his best to get comfortable, but still look like he was a professional of some kind. He failed miserably at both, at least with this crowd of people who were not easily bluffed by anyone. After spending so much time with Tyrol, he knew the reputation and history of most of the Colonials at this meeting without even need to think that hard. These were some of the top pros at being in meetings with other powerful or dangerous people, and not looking uneasy while they were doing it. In Dexter case he was being uneasy enough, that the power players could see the minor signs of his condition from all the way across the room, with no problem. This is when things went off the rails. Way off the rails.

Kelly was about to ask the other man the questions about the stars and navigation. All of which he had already been identified as studying in some detail. Then he noticed that the President to the Colonies, and Dexter had locked eyes and were in some kind of daze or trance. Kelly felt a rock from in his gut. Admiral Adam had also notice the dazed look, but before he could say something to his love. The two started talking in odd synced voices, the tone was not loud. It was in just normal talking voice, but at the same time a little on the sing song side as they spoke. They would be saying the same thing; it would be check, and rechecked later much to the consternation of everyone that had been in the meeting. One was speaking in his native English, and the other in her native highly educated Caprican. It would take some time for this story to get out, and then it would take even longer for the truth to be published in usable mass market format. Both people would have their names put down in future history books and texts, whether they wanted it to happen or not. They would not know it, but the chanting was sending a notice into another plain or universe.

In a chanting rhythm the both humans had started, and it was recorded on the translation computer in the room. It was then displayed with white and green letters on the screen, for everyone to read no matter what their birth tongue might have been. That is, if they did not believe their ears or to be overwhelmed at the mixing of two different languages so close together. "In 169 complete rotations of this planet. The cylons will return with one of their small craft. It will not find a Colonial ship of any kind in this system. Four planet rotations later the large cylon mother ship, will return to this system. The parasite craft will not have liked being here, and the leader of mother ship will not like the message that Major Weston has left for them to read. The cylons will be very confused and leave this system again. 240 rotations later, the beast will return in truly massive numbers of small craft and half machine and half living mother ships. They will bring over three quarters of their entire combat fleet to this one system, to hunt for the humans they have been tracking." The chanting now stopped for forty-five whole seconds.

Just as Bill was about to leave his high backed chair, the pair started chanting in sync, again. "The wooden walls will repel assault after massive assault, but the great walls will fail in the end with a great loss of life. All of the people on the planet will be burn out of the universe, by all of the heavy metal bombs the cylons have in their great fleet. They will be falling from the sky, in number not seen by the people of Kobal ever before in their entire history. Every human left on the planet will die one way, or the other. They will hurt the beasts in the fighting. But if stay, every human will all die. They must be gone, before the war beasts comes back in overwhelming force. You all need to be on the star path, before they come with fire and death for all humans shapes left on this planet and system. If no human like life is found, they will not reduce the planet's surface to ash."

The two had now quit taking, but there hands were moving in smooth motions in the air above their laps. No one had noticed if their hands had started the moving, when the trance had first come on to them or not at the time they stop talking. But they each had grabbed the nearest writing devises and the nearby paper pads, which had been place in front of each chair in the room. They had been place near each of the chairs, and until then unnoticed. It had been done just in case someone needed to take notes, and they were not prepared to do so. It was an old habit of the Earthers, and it looked like it was going to pay off tonight. After tonight, paper pads and pens were the second items put out before each meeting, right behind making sure there were enough chairs for the meeting.

Saul was about to come unglued, and he had no idea what was going on. His "flipping out meter" was pegged, and Bill was just lucky that only his mouth was in operations, as his eyes were about to pop out of his head from the blood pressure his heart was producing. "By the Gods what the Frak is going on here?" As he looked around the room, first at his friend and then shooting an accusing look at the Earthers, across the table from him. Now with that simple statement out it to the air, the medium sized metal room was now again quite. That is except of the scratches sounds coming off of the pens on rectangle paper. This slight noise brought the others eyes to the soft sounds, now audible to the rest of the occupants in the frozen still room.

As it turns out, the two separated cultures had something else in common. And they did not know about until right that second. It was that you did not interrupt someone, who having a vision of some kind. Most of the time it, was because any bystanders that happened to be close by. Were still trying to figure out how to clean there undershorts, most of the time. Everyone in the room stayed quite, till both of the people put the pens down and pads on the desk in front of them. The group of Colonials and Earthers even waited for another pair of minutes. Just to make sure that they were not going to pick them up again and write something else out. Another odd thing was noted, it happened that the pads of paper hit the table at the exactly the same second.

Kelly was watching Dexter closely, and when his eyes came out of the dazed look. Kelly saw then rolled up into his head, before those heavy eye lids were closing again. This was not new to Captain Kelly, because this same type of thing had happened when he had asked Dexter about this bay. It just not as bad, as it was this time. Ever since then, Kelly had been studying every move Dexter made in public, and any report about him on file. Kelly's mind was snapped back to the real world, as both Dexter and Laura's heads hit the table at about the same second with a sickening wet thud. One part of Kelly's mind was ready and quick as a snake, his hand lashed out all on its own. It was so fast, that no one in the room would remember seeing it move.

Kelly was pushing a call button, which would blast a message out to the whole ship as soon as he opened his mouth. His strong command voice reached out to the far corners of his great ship at the speed of light. "Medics to the Main Briefing room, Medics to the Main Briefing Room, NOW!" The syllables were still reverberating in the metal hull, and people were jumping to react to the obviously emergency alert that had been given by their captains own lips.

In a second blink of an eye after the wet thump of heads hitting hard wood. Adama, Saul, and Tory were all hovering over the still from of their President slumped in the chair, and fearing the worst. In their rush, one of them had knocked the pad of paper across the table, and towards Captain Kelly's side of the table in a flutter of stapled top sheets. A pair of medics rushed into the room with such force that the metal hatch clanged off the side of the metal wall of the room, ringing like a bell from the strike of hard metal on metal. Almost every eye went towards the moving hatch. The highly trained combat medic did not need to directed to who was in need of their aid and skills this time. With only a quick look around the briefing room to count the possible victims, they swooped on to the two people in distress likes birds of prey on dinner. They used practiced stiff arms to move any all bystanders away, and it did not matter what rank the bystanders might think they had. They were in the way of a medical emergency, which would not be allowed to continue. Much later, when things were more relaxed, this would be identified as another item that these two groups had in common.

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Adama was a military man threw and threw so when the medics started working on someone. He knew it was best just to get out of their way, or you might be the next person they were working on. Kelly had already collected both pads of paper, and was looking at them, while the medics did their job. Without anything else to do Adama looked around, and saw what Kelly was doing. Adama walked to the end of the table, so that he could see what had been written on them and be out of the way of the medics. He did not expect to understand what was on the papers that he knew had come from the two dazed people. He had seen oracles twice before, in his whole life do what he had seen just now. That is not counting what he had seen on the entertainment shows. When Bill walked close enough to look down at the rectangle pads of paper in Kelly's hands, he was surprise that it was not some jumble of words like he had seen before. Instead he saw a detailed line drawing of a ship of some kind.

It was not just any ship, but his old girl. To anyone who had not spent their lives on them. Battlestars tended to look alike even those in different classes of warship, but to the trained eye. They were differences that could tell you the class or even which member of a class any given ship might be. Even if they were in the same class of Battlestars when they were built, there were little differences that could be seen if you could get close enough. Even before their first date with a space dock. Bill was thinking that it was not a complete drawing. He could tell that things were missing from the pad that Laura had been working on, even without his eyes glass. Kelly passed the Admiral the second pad, which his man had been working on. Adama knew it was his ship again on the new oddly shaped pad of paper in his hands. But parts were missing also from the second pad of paper with red ink drawings on it. So far not a word had been passed in the room since Kelly's call for medics to come, or Saul's yelling that one statement.

Both ship commanders were looking at the drawing as the medical personnel did their jobs a handful of feet away from them. Adama ripped the top sheet of paper off the pad and held it to the overhead lights on a hunch. Adama had to squint, but he could see on the outside of the line drawings were what looked like map reference points of some kind. A like set of marks were at the top, bottom, and on all sides of page. Kelly saw what Adama did and why, and he did the same with his pad of paper and line drawn picture. He also saw the marks on the sheets of paper in his hands. When he held up the picture to the same light, standing beside the other man more could be seen on the pages. It seemed like the two sheets of paper should be together, to make up one larger image. "How could two different people make something like this without saying a word about it?" thought Kelly as he made a face.

Kelly lowered the paper and looked around to room for something that might work to test this theory. He found a computer table that might work for his needs, that was across the room from him. He walked over to the computer, and turned the screen on but uploaded a blank digital page. Now the screen was just a bright white light, in a uniformed tone that covered the entire display area. "Adama, can you come over here for a second, and bring the other pages. I have an idea of what these things might be."

Adama had no idea what the Earther had said, but looked at the translation computer on the table. And in a flash, he got idea of what he might be doing and why. So he brought the page over and could see that the Captain was holding the edges of the page over the bright light. He could see the same marks on the edge a lot clearer than the overhead light had provided. Bill laid his page, just so that all of the markers were lined up with the other page. It looked like the Battlestar Galactica. But it was not how she looked at any time in her long history, that Bill could remember. The Starboard side was still missing its hangar pod, but the spot was a strange mass of metal with many decks. It gave the great ship a very odd outline that made no sense to the Colonial officer. It took Captain Kelly some time, and so very closes looks to figure out what it was he was looking at.

The movement of the two leaders now was drawing attention away from the medics. Who were helping, or more to the point trying to figure out what had happened to Dexter and Roslin. Sophia brought the translation computer over to the side mounted computer deck without being asked. As she was carrying it over, she was thinking that she was lucky that the device was battery powered. Now she only had to elbow her way through the crowd that had gathered around them, to get to Kelly side next to the extra computer table. She put the computer down, and flipped the screen around so that both military men could see the screen without having to strain too hard. Kelly gave her a slight nod of thinks for thinking out of the box, so quickly. He had forgotten about the device.

Kelly pointed to an area on the two pages of images. "Admiral Adama, those images look like the Neptune's Revenge and the Lucky Find. That is what we call our two large ships. They looked to be attached to the side of one of your combat ships somehow. Am I right?" Kelly was looking at Adama right in the eyes, to see if the other man had any idea of what they were seeing. But a movement off to one side diverted the conversation once again. Before anyone could get good and deep into to issue, that had just opened up for them.

The senior Medic came within four paces of the two military leaders, and then waited to be acknowledged before continuing with a report that he wanted to give to all of them. When Captain Kelly looked his way, the senor medic started to talk in a slow and measured tone. The computer next to Kelly and Adama dutifully translated his words, so that the Colonials could know what was going on with his President. "They check out, Sir. What ever happened to them, and it looked like a spell of some kind to me, has run its course. We gave them something for the extreme headaches, which they reported to be having." The senior medic turned slightly and looked directly at the Colonial Admiral. But the look he was giving the Colonials was not a kind one, and his tone sharp. As he addressed the Colonial in the only way, that a doctor and to a higher ranking military person, one that somehow has shown unsound judgment. "Do you know that she has a mild, but advanced form of cancer? And she does not seem to be taking any treatment for it?"

Adama looked at the man then checked the screen on the computer, to make sure that he had heard right. Then Bill looked back at the medic's accusing eyes, with his own level gaze that could have blasted a Raider out of the sky. "Yes I know about the cancer. How were you able to find out about it, without a full medical exam room, or good sized hospital? I don't think she would have told you about it." Bill felt his eyebrows rise, and then they pinch together as he tried to work out what had been said by the doctor (?). Had these Earthers found out that much about her threw some sort of spy network among his own people?

The medic, who also was the ships head doctor, did not like the tone and the look he was getting from the Colonial officer. He just held up a little computer like device in his left hand for the Colonial to see. "I used this. It is standard practice to use this device, to check for things. Just like for markers for most common cancers, and other common illnesses among our people." The doctor continued, like he was talking to a particularly slow child. "I have found that it helps save time, to start with using this first. That is if I don't see any blood, or other signs of major trauma."

Adama forgot about the papers and the drawings on them for the next few minutes. One part of his mind knew that they were very important for his people. Then again so was saving the woman he love's life from a pain filled death that until right then. He, and everyone else in the fleet, had thought that she had been doomed to have to go through. "Can you treat it? We did not have the medical devices and medications to treat something like this properly among the ships and people in the fleet. That and a long list of other things, we are used to begin able to do. We have been able to keep the overall medical issues somewhat under control, but we have lost people that we should have been able to save after the cylons attack. That is it we had a few more of the properly trained medical personnel, or more useful drugs in our ships lockers."

The medic glanced over to Captain Kelly, and when the Captain gave a very him a small nod. The two of them had gotten so used to hearing Caprican, but only needed to listing to the computer translation. They had done this some much, which they normally did not need to look at the screen displayed text that much anymore. The medical told the truth to the Colonial commander, about what they might be able to do. "We might be able to treat her for this cancer. I will have to check what we have in our own medical stocks. And I will need to do a full medical work up on her, before any treatment can begin. I do not want her to die of an allergic reaction or something like that, to the treatment or to a secondary issue that had gone unnoticed." The Doctor lowered his head a little, so that his nose was so high in the air. "I have to warn you, that it will be up to her to decide if she wants to seek any treatment or not." The doctor had read all of the available bio data on the Colonials. and understood that there was a deep "personal connection" between the Admiral and this civilian leader. "I cannot force it on her, if she does not want our help. She is above the minimum age of consent, so we cannot treat her as a child." The Doctor looked down at second device that he had pulled out of his white lab coat top. It was a small, limited use personal data assistant. He pulled up a document but frowned as his eyes moved down the block text. "And like I said. I will also see what we have in our medical stocks reference those other medical issues you referenced."

Adama looked like he was about to say something else, but Kelly wanted to step in first. "Mike thank you for your report. Admiral Adama why don't you and your group, go take a little break. I have a room already set aside, with some refreshments for your use. I think your people have some things that you would like to talk about in a more private setting." Kelly made a show of checking his watch, after finding out more details about the cylons, not long after getting joining the fight. He had sent an advisory out to avoid talking or show any Colonials, any of cyber mods that they might have. In the message he also covered, why he was sending out the notice. "We have a small diner scheduled in about 45 minutes, anyway. I will have an escort take you there, and after you had some time with just your group. I will send someone to guide you to the dining room"

The dinner, which Captain Kelly was referring to, was in fact not for another two hours. But he knew his kitchen crew could handle the change, which he had just offered up to the in the visibly distress Colonials. Kelly made the command decision, and they would react to it. He just would have to deal with an irate head cook late. He knew that would be about an hour out of his life, which the he would never get back. He also might have to deal with cold, hot drinks for a few days, but he could deal with that also. It would not be the first time or the last time he would have that issue.

Bill looked over at the now sitting up, but with her butt still on the metal deck of the cabin. Laura, who was listening, and reading what the two men had been saying while she was getting her mind right. As soon as Bill looked in her direction, she quickly nodded that she agreed with what the Earther had suggested. Bill Adama also knew it was the right decision. The nod from her confirmed that it was right, and that Roslin's mind might still be functioning. He looked back to the Earther and spoke a little slower, than he had been a few seconds before. "Yes, Captain. I think that would be a good idea, a very good idea."

Bill turned to face the side of the room, with most of his people in view. He made sure to use his command barring when he addressed them. It would be the best way to cut through the stress and confusion. "Let's take a break. These good people have made dinner plans for us, in less than an hour. I think that we could use a break from the meeting. Before we put food on our stomachs after the last few days we have had to deal with." He did not need to say out loud to them. That it also would give them some time to review what had just happened to Laura. And do it in some kind of private setting, to work out how they wanted to handle what had happened. His words were greeted with positive head movements from the stunned remainders of his people. Besides it was not like any of would defy the "Tone" or the "Look" coming from Bill Adama.

As the Colonials were leaving the meeting room, Kelly had a hand jester to Kat to come over towards where he was standing. The female cylons nodded her head to signal that she had seen the signal and walked over towards, careful to make sure none of the Colonials would see her moving.

When she was close enough to suit Kelly he leaned a little close to her still walking from. He let a concerned look cross his face. "So Kat. Why did not you not bring up, the information about some of them being cylons? I was expecting you to drop that bomb on them as soon as there was space where no one else was talking."

Kat looked at Captain Kelly dead in the eyes, and then did a slight shoulder shrug. "I was about to, but then everything went sideways. Then I figured, now was not the time to rock the boat for our people." With that statement, Kat turned on her heals and walked out of the room. She was due to make an inspection of a few of the cylon POWs in a couple of hours.

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The group of Colonials left the room fallowing the Admiral and their President almost in single file out of the hatch and down the corridor. The room was only a few hallways away from the meeting room that Kelly and the others had just been using. This new room had many uses on this old ship. It was a mess cabin, or day cabin when they had VIP's on board. When it was not being used for one of those two primary duties, it was a reading or quite game room for the crew of the ship and their quests. Now it was set up with a nice center table, and some nicer chairs than normal that had been scattered around the room. The idea was that it would be a quiet and comfortable place to relax.

The first thing Adama did after the metal hatch shut behind them, was to wave for the group to stay quiet for a few more minutes. Bill pulled out his very small portable transmitter from his coat pocket. He used the small device to let both the Battlestars overhead, and Racetrack at the Raptor, all know that everything was okay…. So far any way. He confirmed that he would check in, at their next schedule time. He reinforced that things seemed to be going okay, this time in the correct coded phrases. He did not say, out loud, what time that next transmission to his people was going to be. But the people on the other end of the contacting device knew what he was talking about. Bill Adama always had a plan that he was working off of, including protecting his people from any surprises that were on a long list he had planned for. That list was view able only by three people, who were not on this planet right now.

With that bit of work done, Bill looked around the cabin taking it all in for the first time. It did not take long for Bill to realize, that these Earthers had done their homework on the Colonials. Normally, at least when they had been back on the home planets, this was the way for the Colonials taking a break from a major meeting. They would have gone into a room not unlike like this, except maybe larger. It would be normal to see some kind of Ambrosia laid out with ice, and maybe some cheese to snack on while they relaxed among the member of their side. The Earthers did not have Ambrosia, but they did have a few bottles of the locally produced intoxicating drinks set out on the table. However that was not the drink, which the other three people in the room had zeroed in on while Bill had been on the device.

What was on the table was something that none of them had access to, on a regular basses in a very long time. Only Saul, Laura and Troy had seen any at all, but still not in this quantity that was on display in this anteroom. That was fresh and cold fruit juice, and slices of four different kinds of fruit neatly placed in a small piles in the center of the table like some kind of center peace. The dishes and glasses might have been plain looking, but no one took notice of them. Some of the cut up fruit looked like items from their home planet, and others most certainly did not. It did not matter what it looked like, it was fresh. And everyone in the room had some before they got down to business, and filled tall water glass full of cold fruit juice. It was a pleasant distraction, for as long as it lasted.

Laura sat down, and took a sip of cold fruit juice, and let her mind work. She found that the juice would help to wash the ill tasting drops, which the medic had dropped into her mouth not long after she had remembered who she was. The headache was gone seconds after the drops had hit her tongue, but they did taste bad and it seemed to linger in her mouth. She looked over at Bill after he had taken a seat, and sipped his own drink. She noticed that he had not taken his eyes off of her after contacting Lee. She was tired of waiting, and fired her question off as soon as the glass was way from his lips. "Okay what did I say, when I went to talk to the gods? I can't remember a Fraking thing." She had said it to the room as a whole, but she was looking straight at Bill Adama. She had wanted everyone could hear it, but it was more important to see his reaction.

Bill and Tory took turns telling Laura everything that was said, and what the two of them had seen printed on the screen of the translation computer. They had to repeat it twice, that this Dexter person had been in a trance right along with her. Laura had assumed when she had first come to, she had thought that it was something to do with her "medical" issue coming back to bite her in the butt. Bill told the group what the two of them had drawn on the pads of paper in more detail, and that it was Captain Kelly who had first found what the reference marks were for. None of the others had noticed the notepads, so this was scary news to be taken in by the rest of her entourage. Even Saul had kept his mouth shut, and took in all of the information. It was hard to explain, that the drawings had both of the Earthers ships. And that somehow they were being attached to his ship. Right where the hangar bay had been attached until that morning, until the cylon nuclear bomb tipped missile fire had blasted it apart. Laura felt her heart to start to beat faster, as Bill told her about what she had done. She was hoping that the religious sects would not catch wind of it.

Saul looked at Bill and Laura when the room was again quite for a few minutes so that the rest of them could now mentally process what had really happened. He looked down at this glass of cold juice in his hands. He was surprised that he had drunk half of it, without noticing he had done so. He winked his nose and lips and then spoke. "So what do we think about these Earthers?" Saul shot looks round the room. He knew that he had almost said 13th Tribe instead of Earther. But somehow it did not slip out. It might have been after all of these months of thinking of them only as Earthers, and not as a lost Colonial tribe to kept it from coming out. Saul had been burned to many times in the past, both with humans and now cylons. When things were looking like they were going good, he started looking for the pitfall to ruin his day somehow.

Bill, who was now holding Laure's hand gently, looked at the metal roof of the cabin. He was lost in thought as he worked up a replay for Saul's question. He felt the corners of his mouth drupe down into an impressive frown. "They are an enigma wrapped with so many inconsistencies." His voice trailed off for a few seconds, before he started talking again in a steady tone. "So many, that I have no idea how to start counting them. They are human, but don't know about Kobal. They don't have accesses or knowledge of spaceships, but they have multiple Direct Energy Weapons types that the average person could carry. Now let's add on top of that. When you went into that trance, the doctor identified that someone might have cast a spell on you both. The tone and body language their head medical person used." Bill looked around at all of the wide-eyed looks he was getting. "He had used makes me think, that they truly believe it. Like they have had to deal with real life magic users before, and they were not that rare were they come from."

Bill looked down and to the side, so that he could see Laura better. His face was deadly serious as he kept eye locked on her. "They truly believe in that kind of stuff, but the medic that checked on you. He was able to find out about your cancer, and that you had not been treated for it. All with a small hand held device, that he pulled out in there emergency kit bag. You were still out of it, so I know you did not tell them." He shook his head side to side then took another deep drink from a tall glass of cold juice. It had been a long time since he had anything close to fruit juices, and even then. It had come out of a decades old powder jar, and that was the best case scenario. He had no idea what kind of juices this was, but it was good, fresh, cold and best of all. It seemed like it was in plentiful supply.

Laura nodded and was letting what Bill had said; sink in to her very part of mind for a second. It was so much to think about in such a short amount of time, that she felt like it was best if she changed the subject for a few seconds at least. "What do you think about them having a human form cylon walking around without chains, or being in a cell of some kind? What about this mess of treating them under some kind of "rules of prisoners'" thing. It looked like you were going to jump out of your skin when you saw first her." Laura looked over the rim of her glass at Bill, and her tone got soft and a sly smile came to her face. "That was cute of you to jump between me and it, like that by the way." Now she gave Bill a sweat smile, and then let it drop away just as fast. And her voice went razor thin as the political part of brain took over. "Please don't do that again. It can make me look weak to others, and right now we cannot afford to look weak in front of anybody. That includes friends, and /or our new allies."

Bill looked back at her, and was working through a few different plans in his heads. The looks were noted, and he just as easily dismissed most of what she had said. He would do what he had done again, no matter what the political fallout might be. While he was pressing that he, then went with his first idea. "I say let them take care of these POW's, as they call them." Bill did a slight shrug of his shoulders, but kept eye lock. "The one they are working with, it was from the same line as Athena. So who knows? Maybe that one changed sides, just like she did with us. I already laid the ground work, so I will be able to keep someone looking in on the cylons. I pitched it, that we know more about the cylon than they do. And besides having some people from our side working with more closely with there is a good thing. But I will bet that they will have to learn somethings all on their own. Right now I'm thinking of them as a very hard headed kid or teenager."

He waited for the smile to come to Laura's face at the reference she had no problem understanding. "Sometimes they have to learn the hard way and bloody way, to realize the way at the world really works around them." He looked around the room, and hoped that the room was not being monitored in any way. If it was, there was nothing they could do about it any way. After accepting that fact, he changed the subject away from the POWs issues. "We need these people. I did not realize how much we need them, till we drove through their little town tonight. They have a list of skills sets, and a drive that has been missing from our people for some time. I don't think that captured cylons is worth causing a problems, that might come up over how to handle any cylons." Bill looked around the room, and was pleasantly surprised that he was getting small head nods agreeing to what his had just said. He had been expecting some kind of dissent with the idea.

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The group nodded talked amongst themselves, about a lot of different topics. It was all about how and what they had seen, from there unique point of view. Time went so quickly, that they were surprised when a knock came from the metal hatch that made up the only door into this room. A person in uniform opened the door. In passable Caprican let them know that dinner was served, and to please fallow him. When Saul asked a question, the young man just shook his head from side to side. Then he said something in a foreign tongue. It would seem that the young man had used up all of his limited Caprican in those two or three sentences he had just used.

The Captain's mess was set up for its first state dinner that the ship had needed to host, in a very long time. The purpose of the meal was to give everyone some time to visit. And as a meet and greet for what most people would have call the power players of the two different groups. This was a tried and true method to do the job. This again was another item, which had been used by both sides for hundreds of years. The seating arraignments were done in such a way that someone or something, which could translate for each small group of two or three persons. What had also been set up had been the "Clothes" the Earthers were wearing, and the concealed hand weapons that each of the people from Earth was carrying hidden. Even the people working with the food and drinks, were packing weapons and light body armor.

The meal was set up so that the group of Colonials could have some of the different foods, which they might not have had access to in a very long time or ever. The down side to this idea in the planning was what to do, if some of the Colonials did not like something. That would have been a disaster, and unlike back home. There was little available information on, what each of the leaders like, or did not like to eat, or what there favorite or least favorite topic to talk about. What worked in favor for the Earthers. It was that the Colonials all had been on short rations, emergency food stuffs, or algae vat grown slop for some time now. In other words, and fresh or even halfway fresh food was very welcome to both sight and to their stomachs.

Each plain white porcine plate had a two inch thick cut of shark stake, two mid to small pieces of baked chicken from the birds that had stopped laying eggs. Next to the meat, were a pair fresh eggs and some kind of vegetable to add some color to the plate. They even had a fresh green leaf side salad to start the meal with. It they had some bottles of wine. It would have looked like a real state dinner back on Caprica or something like that. It went over very well, every for Captain Kelly and his very frustrated kitchen staff working behind the scene. No one had said to the cook staff. That they had been on short rations or living on soups for so long, that they would have eaten rotten food and would have been glad to have even that. When the dinner was over the whole room was in a good mood, and laurels and smiles were on all of their faces. It did not matter if they were Colonial or Earth born.

Only one spot of an issue had come up during the dinner. It had been when Adama pulled out his little transmitter, and contacted his people in the middle of dinner. Captain Kelly just dropped his head and smiled into his napkin at some of the shocked looks coming from the Colonial's own side of the table at what he had done. The others two members of the government on his side of the table, also did not take it so well. Kelly defused the issues, when he said it was a smart move on the Colonial's part. "You always need to have a plan, if things went bad". Kelly pointed out, kind of off handily to his fellow co-leaders. He said that they could have been some kind of pirates, after all. That statement had hit the group of Earthers like a thunder strike, or the shockwave from a Glitterboy's very aptly named boom gun. That was all it took for smiles to return to the group as a whole. Well that and some more fresh food coming out of one of the side hatches.

Adama made a mental note, to go along with a growing list of them. When the one leader had said something about pirates, and the whole group of Earthers had gotten very serious for a few seconds. "Pirates must be a serious problem for these people back where they come from," thought Bill in a quite part of his brain. The Colonial navy was not a stranger to this particular set of lice on the human race. Those lice had been the primary enemy, after the end of the very first cylon war for the Colonial Navy. However the idea of pirates with this kind of fire power to take out a few regiments of cylon was scary, to the point of being a down right nightmare. Maybe it was a good thing that these Earthers could not get into space, threw a debris field that they said now circled there planet for a few hundred years. If people this well-armed, and trained for war were allowed into the space lanes? Well that would be a game changer, if they ran into cylons or anyone else for that matter. Maybe not having access to space, had forced them to invest in different areas of research than the Colonials had done in their past.

Adama was so lost in thought about Rift Earthers getting off of their planet in mass. That he did not hear what Kelly said to him, the first time the words were spoken was lost on him. It was the quit and something in the back of his mind itched. This brought him back to the dinner party and knew he had missed something. He had to look over at the other man. "I'm sorry you caught me day dreaming, what did you say?" Bill was a little embarrassed by his laps in awareness. He chocked it up to being older, tired, and well he was just plain tired. Now he was thankful that they did not have any ambrosia, something like that would have knocked him on his butt, and he knew it after only a drink or two at most.

Kelly gave the hard faced man, sly little smile. "I was wondering. What might some of the things that might come up out of the blue? That will bite all of us in a very sensitive spot. When we are working, with more and more of your people in the future? It is bound to happen, don't you agree?." Kelly still had the smile on his face, but the voice he used was serous.

Adama did not smile this time, and his face was still as ancient stone at the heart of a mountain. "Religion. With you claiming to be from Earth, but not of the 13th Tribe. Then you have to add in that you don't all believe in the Lords of Kobal." Now Bill made a sour face. "I think your Major Weston already had a run in with some of that sort of thing already. The next thing will be that you're not under control of the Colonial council or Quorum as we call it. And lastly, it is that you have too many strange ideas that …just are not Colonial in nature. I personnel don't have any issues with any of this." Bill waved his hand in an odd gestured over his head. "Those are the down side of things. On the positive side of things, I think that you or more to the point your people. All could inject a drive, which my people have been missing for some time now. Most of our people are just existing, and not living, or even trying to live any more. They move from day to day, sleep to awake without any drive to truly live like they used to do. It is like they are moving around like they are in glue, or something. Maybe some ideas that are not Colonial, will kick start them again into to having a drive to live again."

Kelly looked down to the table top, but then quickly remade eye contact with Adama again. He had been reviewing all of the contact reports on groups of Colonials from the Major, for a few days now. He was not surprised that Admiral Adama had not only come up with the same issues he had seen, but that he had just voiced them to the whole room. It took Kelly a few seconds to remember the name of the group that had been such a pain to work with for Major Weston.

When the name came to Kelly, he could not help but let a sigh slip through his lips. He made a note on his pad to have Weston check on that group, now that the fighting was over. "Yes, we have had a run in with a group calling themselves "The Sons of Aries". That was a while ago, and they decided that they did not want our help." Now Kelly was frowning deeply. That group had made some things a lot clearer, after they left the support camp to Major Weston. It looked like the Admiral agreed with that they had already worked out. "I talked with my people a number of times. And one hard and fast item with us and our people is that we will enforce our rules on this planet. What you do, in and on your ships. That is your business, and falls under your type of laws Admiral. We have a precedent in our written laws for this type of thing and it had been used a few times that I know about. So we don't have to do any back flips or jump through hoops, legally wise, to stay out of your affairs. What we don't know, and we have had a problem finding out so far. Is if your legal system can handle something like that?" Kelly had no idea if the Admiral was picking on why? He had directed the subject this way. He knows that the civilian leader had to have reviewed the Earthers laws, before today. Kelly knew that most of them had been sent into the Refugee camp. Now if the Military leader had not? Well this was a hint that he needed to review the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion parts of their laws. If he did not review those, that was his problem.

Adama looked at the man that seemed like he was about the same age as him, but he was not sure of his age. Bill knew that this Captain Kelly was a man of the blue seas. Bill had known a few lifelong fishermen, and knew that they aged differently due to the salt and sun on their skins. Bill was tired and the food now seemed to be taking energy away from him, instead of the other way around. He was fighting off what the Earthers would have called a "food coma". "That will work for now, but what about later." He tapped a notebook that held the one of the two sheets that had been drawn on tonight. "What about what your oracle said? If any humans stay on the mud ball? They will all die when the cylons come back to this system in full force."

Kelly leaned back in his high back wooden chair. "Well, my people will have to put it to a vote. Luckily we have talked about this type of event a few times, since we saw you ships that day after the nuclear explosion in planetary orbit. We will have to give out the information, which we got today. Along with anything else that is remotely relevant to this subject. We cannot just order everyone to leave the planet, and expect them to comply without demands or other…..issues that might turn very ugly." Kelly stopped talking and tilted his head to his left, and he had an odd grin on his sun weathered face. He gave a teeth hidden smile to the Colonial officer. "So are you offering us a ride out of here, Admiral?" He could have said more, but he would hold these questions for a later time. Kelly was having to force himself to remember, that his was only the first meeting at this level between their two peoples.

Adama smiled with a knowing smile, he knew how this game was played after so many years in the Colonial Military. "Well, our leadership will have to vote on something like that also. But." Bill looked around, and feeling that it was safe to continue knowing that Roslin was listening in on what he was talking about. If he crossed a line she would reach over and squeeze his leg, just like she had done before. "I will tell you. My son or I will not be willing to leave the only other humans. That we have found since, we were almost bombed out of existence to die at the hands of the cylons. We need every single person we can find, just so we don't die off and fade out of the universe forever. I think we can live by your suggestion. I say, we stick with them for now." Bill shot a look toward Roslin, who only raised an eyebrow at him. "And that is what I will suggest to anyone who asks me. If we need to make changes later, we will see about then. After we have had some time together, I'm sure we can work something out that we all can work with long term. I think you have spent more time thinking about this subject, than we have. You kind of have us at a disadvantage, when it comes to thinking about that subject." Bill gave Kelly a slight smile. "Now to back track a little, what were you thinking about trading for? You mentioned that earlier and during the few audio meetings we could set up. I now take it your thinking about long term trade partnerships."

Kelly gave a laugh that drew everyone else's in the rooms' eyes to them, from their own little groups of conversation. He started address what the Colonial had said in order he felt was appropriate. "Let see Admiral. You have over 40,000 people, two huge space going warship, and lots of these smaller types of spaceships that can fly in the planet atmosphere in the hundreds. We have less than 5,000 people, one armed cargo ship, and one armed cargo conversion made into a type of warship. And all of them are water bound ships, where as yours orbit the whole planet." Kelly was keeping a little smile on his face and the tone was as light as he could. He was reciting on the most vocal critics of help the Colonials almost word for word.

Kelly was keeping an eye on the Colonial as he spoke slowly. "I think it's your people, who have the advantage over us Admiral Adama. What we have sir, which you did not start out with. It is that we were already set up, to help in starting up a colony at the end of a long supply line. We have a mixed group of skills to make something like that happen. We have food in storage, and can grow more from seeds or collect some of the local food items. Those are all skills that you were not allowed to start with. But we need manpower to do those types of jobs. Now if we are going to feed everyone, and at the same time stockpile enough food for a long trip? We are also going to need something else from your people." Kelly could feel, but not see Sophia leaning a little close to him. She was waiting to see how he was going to pitch this issue, and she was taking notes for future use. "We will need to have quite a bit manufacture support. We are going to need it, in setting up more green and grow houses. And I'm sure I'm missing a huge list of other items connected to just dealing with food."

Kelly put his hands flat on the white table cloth. "From what we have been told, and the way we understand it. It is that not all of your ships have the ability or skills, to set any those items inside of them and still do their primary job. The term we use for something like this on our ships, is a hydroponic system. We can help, setting things like that up; both of our large ships have one in operation. We can't do it all, and not without detailed information on each ship in your fleet." Kelly could see that Adama was listening to every word he had said. Now Kelly let the sly little smile come to his face once more as he played the game. He knew what he was about to say was going to make some of the Colonials very happy. "We can also supply you some finished metals items, along will the food and knowledge." He gave a sly smile to Laura, and then back to Abama. "I have also been told that it is somewhat better than what you have access to, before this war started with the cylon." Kelly saw the look on the military man's face as he looked wide eyed back at him.

Now Kelly got ready to drop the other bomb that the three leaders of the Earthers had agreed on to do tonight if it came up. "By the way, whatever weapons and body armor your people have bought legally. It is theirs to keep or sale as they wish, as long as it is not to any of the cylons. But we want all of the loaned items back, as soon as we can get them. I want to have them packed back down into proper storage, as quickly as we can." Kelly did a slight shoulder shrug, as he kept talking in a slow measured tone. "You never know when we might have to reissue them out, in an emergency. Or maybe trade them around, if things are going well between our people."

Adama smiled a toothy grin and thought. "Jack Pot, the lords have smiled on us this time!" He did not know where to start. He had just been offered too many golden apples at once, so he addressed the last apple first. That was about the only item that he had spent any time thinking about. "You could say that again, if half of what I have heard about your armor plate is true." Bill could not help but give a questioning look down his glasses. It showed that he was not a believer in most of those stories, yet. "We will take as much refined metal sheets, as you can make. I also will pass along, the request for the return of all loaned equipment back to your supply personnel. I will can finally use those reporters for something positive, and have them pass the news about the sales that have been already made. I bet that there were more than a few of my people, who were worried about that they were going to lose the items they paid for." Bill knew that, this would not be the first time something like that had happened in Colonial history. He knew that he had been worried about having to order to some of his own people to have done something like that. He had only read the highlights from some of those reports, so far of them bring up not given up that gear. Now it looked like the he need not have worried about that issue after all.

Adama leaned towards the other man across the white covered table. He was hoping that the little computer was up to the task that he was about to put threw. "I know that you know. That we will be, and have been working on, some of those weapons. We need to see the technology they are bases on, could be interrogated with what we have learned about weapons. Then we need to see if it can be effectively matched up into our current weapons development plans. I also wanted to personally, thank you for those weapons, that you let our people have access to. Any edge we can get, and more importantly, the ones that we can keep over the cylons. The better it will be for all humans left in the galaxy. I will see about how we can use your food growing skills and knowledge. It might take some time to work on the integrating something like that into ships that have not been designed to handle it. I will also see about getting our people to help learning some of those skills from your people. If I have to, I will see about moving that to fall under the military supply department." As Bill was talking to the Earther, in his mind had a few funny images playing out. He was thinking about all of those accountants, middle managers, and other bureaucrat. And now them having to learn to go from working with number and sheets of clean papers with numbers on them, into them working in the dirt growing food they all would be eating. It was a funny set of images that flashed into his mind. He had to fight to keep them from showing up on his face.

Kelly nodded in agreement before looking down at this plate. He then took a sip of cold juice, and took another bit of nicely done shark steak. Shark Steak was second only to Beef Steak for Captain Kelly as his favorite center peace of a dinner meal. It had been that way even before beef had been involuntary removed from the menu, by coming to his planet on so short of a notice. After savoring the steak that had been cook exactly how he like it. He changed the subject from getting the loaned out weapons to something equally important. "How long do you think it will take to get all of the civilian ships down, and under cover that was found for them?"

Adama had to pull out a cut cornered card, with writing on both sides. He checked a few tables that were pointed on the card, with what had happened today in the real world. "At the rate we are going, using only today as the primer. It might take up to eight days to get all of the ships down that we had planned have on putting down." Bill looked up from the card, and gave a slight shoulder shrug. "I think it will go faster than that, once the ground crews get more comfortable in the process. As well as, when we have more of the ships command crews that have done this little exercise. They will be passing along any tips or tricks to the other crew. And those other crews should have time to run a few simulations on their own before having to do the job."

Bill took a bite of the strange vegetable on his plate, before he did his own change of subject. "I think that I will be letting Battlestar Pegasus, go out on a new mission in a few days. I want to use this window that we have, when we know that the cylons are running away as fast as there jump engines can carry them. To do some much delay, and very detailed scouting missions that I have wanted to do for some time now. This star system is short on some things, which we are going to need in some large amounts in the near future. We will need them to make most of the repairs, and the manufacture new parts for our ships." Bill made a slightly confuse look as he try to explain something to the Earther that he did not know if he had the back ground knowledge to understand or not. "A nebula of this size should, have all that we need floating around. We just need to find it first. We have topped off with what he had found, but I don't think it will be enough." Bill did not say that he had been pushing Baltar for months. To send many different scouting missions out of this system, to do just that. But every time he had brought up the topic, well before the cylons had returned. Baltar would have come up with some reason, which would stop the missions dead in their tracks. Bill could have done it in any way he wanted, but he would have been breaking the laws of his people on civilian oversight of the military. Bill Adama could not read the future, no matter how many people had assumed that he could. He did not want to set bad examples for any future Colonial Military personnel. And Baltar was smart enough to know that if Bill did break the law. And that he could pitch it in such a way that Baltar could have him removed from command legally.

Kelly nodded at the other military leader. He understood that the Colonial was being very helpful, so he decided to give up something also. "All of our people are generally weak in all of the space science, but these one's who do have some knowledge of that kind of thing. Well, they have made the commit about this system to me and others. They said it is short on all of the small stuff that a solar system should have, we had almost zero shooting stars. They cannot make sense of it, and when you add in." Kelly stopped talking as he looked for the right words. "Then you add in, that this is a fully formed star system, but it is still in a nebula. They say this system should be full of odd little and large bits, which should be flying around the star. But they aren't seeing anything like that from our limited instruments." Kelly gave Bill a questioning look. "I take it that you're surprised by this as well? Or is this type of star system normal in your people's experience with space travel?" Kelly really wanted an answer to this question, but he was also scared of what the answer might be. He was thinking about a sign he saw one time. "If you're scared of the answer, don't ask the question".

Adama smiled and had a soft laugh leave his craggy face. This made Laura smile, very few people had ever seen Bill Adama smile in what seemed like years. After Bill made eye contact with her, and patter her on her hand. He turned back to look at the Kelly. "This planet should not be here at all! I have hundreds of qualified navigators on my ships, which all have tried to run the odds on this planet being where it is and viable for human life. If one of our Raptor pilots, called Racetrack, had not had some crazy jump error in her Raptor that day. Well, we never would have found this place in the place. As far as I can tell, and I looked in every data file I could think of. This planet is one in a hundred billion chance of being here, maybe more. The cylons only found us. Because someone popped a stolen nuclear warhead inside of the ship we had called Cloud 9." Bill put his fork down and folded his hands almost like praying, then sat his head on the knuckles.

After what he seen tonight he was going to say something that he had overheard at the Battlestars bar. When he had heard it, he had thought that it was the Ambrosia talking for someone. Now he was not so sure. "This place looks like it was designed, to be a hiding spot for someone or something on a massive scale." He shook his head and frowned a little. "Now I sound like on those crazies, which go to one of the temples three times a day and every day. Who could design a whole solar system? Complete with five whole planets, out of a massive stellar nebula at the end of nowhere." Bill was shock still as he looked at the other military leader, then he started to chuckle that was soon joined by another.

Kelly and Adama were laughing when Laura rose from her chair and walked up on the pair of military men. Neither man had notice her leaving her chair one group down from them. She had been in another group talking with Max and Sophia. She had been distracted, and had not seen the screen in time to know much. "What are you so happy about?" She had noticed that the two military leaders seemed to be getting along nicely, but she knew Bill Adama. And he could only have been talking shop, with another ships commander. Making small talk was not something; he genetically knew how to do. The other groups were not talking about anything, but things that might be work related were always pushed away. It was all about kids, weather, or other benign topics. What she had been talking about had mostly been about the different foods, and drinks that they had been having. Or about the types of food that they had supplied the people living in the Refugee camp. In other words, she was board out of her mind in about five minutes.

Adama told her about how some of the Colonials thought this system had been made for them, by the gods of Kobal own hands. And that they all should stay, no matter what happened with the cylons finding them the last time. Kelly was reading the screen as they talked in a very light voiced with almost levity in there tone. He was thinking that they might be closer to the truth about how this system came about, than any of them might have guested. He did not tell them this, but he was thinking about a few dinner meets that he had sat in on Rifts Earth years ago. They had been with some very powerful beings, which sometimes now called Earth home… for now. They had told some stories about some of their kind had done in the past.

Both seemed to be having a few giggles about this being a system built by someone else's hand. Kelly was now thinking that it might have caused some more religious issues, if he brought some of those stories. So he let just sit, for now. The Rifts Earth had seen more beings that could be called Gods and even more Demons treed the surface of a world. Than anyone really wanted to count, or even think about too hard. He had even shared a few meals with both types of beings, in this very room before. If they found the "Earth" these Colonials were looking for? Who knows what they would find living on its surface.

The evening had to end before the next check in time for the Colonials. It was Laura who had walked around to the different groups to tell them that it was time to leave this part of meeting. More than a few looks were passed to any food that had been left uneaten on the white covered table thinking about asking for a snack to go. Each group had a lot to do, and this was only the first meeting. Besides, everyone in this room already had a very long day today. There would be a lot more meetings, both at this level and lower down the food chain in the coming weeks. Each of the small mixed group of Colonials and Earther, would think about how much a like they were. With full bellies and happiness in their hearts, the dinner part of the meeting broke up.

The meeting broke into small groups, and a quick tour of the odd warship was given to them. It had only lasted about half an hour, before the Colonials had to make it back to the Jetty the ship was secured to. They were met by the same hover car and driver at the end of the gang plank, which connected the ship to the wooden dock. The ride back to the grounded Raptor was quicker this time. This was okay for the Colonials riding in the open air transport. It was a long day for everyone, more than one of them let their eyes closed for eye blinks that last for a few minutes. The driver was not talking as he drove; he was leaving the Leaders alone with their own thoughts.

Even though he would never admit it, but Apollo was extremely happy when it was reported that his father was safely back on board the Raptor ship. Apollo was hovering over the different station on his own Battlestar the entire time he had been ground side. He did not relax one bit until it was reported that the Raptor had safely landed on the Flagship. Even if the ship that his father was on, was an old badly damaged Battlestar. That was damaged and blasted ship, but she could hold air and fire her weapons. It was only after that last report had come in to his CIC. That Lee Adama walked off his command bridge for the first time that day. In his own living cabin, he tries to enjoy some private time with his wife. The wife, he did not know was going to be alive at the end of the day when this day had started. It was a nice reunion, for the pair.

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The next week was just one huge task, which had to be done after another. And that did not mean that you waited, or could get one task done before had to start another one. There was some good news to make the rounds on the Colonel civilian ships and the Battlestars. One, like about Starbuck being found alive, with a hand full of others. That along with the two babies found in the cylon controlled building that did not seem the worse for the ware. Everyone had thought thad these people had died sometime after the cylons had shown up. Since one of the children was the hybrid child from Halo and Athena. That bit of news would be listed as both being in good news, and bad news column for most people. So after the recovery and return of their baby, Halo and Athena had asked for citizenship at the Settlement. They had been told that the child had died at birth, under orders from then President Roslin.

Both Adamas and Laura did not know how long it would be before, any of them would be considered safe to be around those two without witnesses or guards. The last words broken between the two families had not been very…..civil. But that was what can happen, when you tell a set of parents. That their child died at birth, and then hide it and finality let the cylon capture it. When the paper work had crossed Bill Adama's desk about them wanting to leave, he did not hesitate to sign it. He even went as far as pass a note to the leaderships of the Settlement, with a copy of the last Colonial Evaluation report for both of them. They both had been as glowing report that the elder Adama had ever written for a pair of his pilots. They had joined almost five hundred other Colonials, which had already asked to fall under the Settlement's law systems instead of the more familiar Colonial ones. Not all of the five hundred had been accepted, yet, into the Earthers Settlement.

It did not take long to prove that Adama was right, about one of the bits of information he had given in that first high level meeting with the Earthers. It did not take the full eight days to get all of the ships that could hide, to be well-hidden back on the planet. They did it in five complete days, and the last one was settled in underwater just as the local clock read noon. The event was broadcast live to the whole fleet, and a cheer was raised no only on the Colonial ships. This was another joint mission that the two groups had completed together.

The last ship to be brought into the hiding spots was none other than Colonial One. A quick temporary vote had been taken among the Colonials, for leadership of what was left of the Colonial people. Laura had beaten Zarek, to be the acting President for a limited eight month term. She had won by a landslide, taking over eighty percent of the short notice electronic vote. Part of the deal that had been done to limit the acting President, was that on or before first day after the 8th month term was over. Then another more Colonial normal election must be held. Zarek had already made a very public pledged, to run again for that lofty position of President. But his last run had netted him less than twenty percent of the total votes cast. He had been furious at those low numbers, even if it was double of what Baltar had gotten as a write in candidate. Luckily, as long as you were not Zarek or his close friends that temper tantrum had been caught live on a fleet wide broadcast. The very next day, after the election, he and his ring of closest friends were already spreading rumors liberally around the fleet. One of which said that there was rampant ballot stuffing, and that was the reason he had lost the non-standard election.

As it was expected now over twenty of the Colonial ships had to be hidden under the grey waters of protected bay, which protected the Settlement from the heavy cold storms of the open ocean. This was going to cause problems in the future, but nothing that could not be worked out later. After all, they were spaceships and they had airlocks, and as luck would have it. The airlocks on the Earth built submarines, could be easily modified to fit the Colonial made spaceship airlocks. It had only taken about a dozen hours to complete those modifications on the Earth built ships. A schedule had already been set up to rotate people off those ships suck underwater. That way those crews and passengers could see the sun, and have the wind on their faces ever now and then. It was hoped that a drier locations could be found later, but at least they could say or be told that they were safe…..for now. That left only the ships in orbit, which could not land on a planet that were totally exposed to any cylon attack. The totals were just over twenty ships of all types that were left in orbit above the planet. This number including the two Battlestars, four electronic repair ships, two mining ships, two refining ships, a dozen super cargo haulers, and tankers that were built in space. And they all were designed, so that they would never need to touch the ground ever again. On the planning plus side, this smaller fleet would be able to react a lot faster to any threat. At least compared to the whole could have ever done in the past, well that was how they were selling it to the public anyway.

It was with some more political issues that both Bill and Laura had to deal with that took up a lot of their time. That was when it was noticed that the only fully functional Battlestar, was being made ready to leave the system. It was only going to be for a few weeks of scouting the local area. All the while Bill Adama had to work through those issues political issues, that he felt were not justified. He had crews that were crawling over each of the ship ground side, starting with the ships that were in hiding spots on dry land. The ships left in orbit had already had this done to them. The list of when, and what ship was going to be worked on was kept secret. But the ships in orbit were all checked out first, and would get the first of the parts. There were only so many personnel that knew what to do, and also space suit rated. The ones that were not suit rated, were the ones working on the ground side ships.

Lists of parts these inspections generated were then sent to a central office on one of the manufacturing ships. Those ships had historically a shortage of raw material on board those massive ships. It had been that way even before the cylons had come to this bit of space. While Bill had been in hiding from the cylon, he had kept sending out a small scouting force in local the area. They had been look for any sign that the cylons were looking for them. This small group of humans had been able to find the needed materials in the nebula, to finally fill their bays to capacity, and replace what they were using. This would not last forever, or even a long time with the demands being put on those production ships that was only expected to grow over the next few weeks. One of the tasks for this new scout forces was to find more raw materials, and to make sure that they cylons were not still out there hiding close by this system. While Bill was dealing with people trying to work around Laura about this mission, one request was sent to directly Adama. He had been surprise both in length and content of the message. It simply said. "What can us, the Earthers, provide for ores?"

Adam spent the next six hours kicking himself in the seat of his pants. He had never even thought about what asking them about something like that. After all, the Earthers had not offered any information like that when they had that meeting. What mineral wealthy might they have found in there extended stay on that cold planet? He had always assumed that if the solar system was so poor in metals, than it made since that it would hold true of what was on the planet's surface. After Bill got his mind wrapped around his over-site, he sent a message back to the command center of the Settlement. It held the common Colonial names, and atomic number of each of needed items. Bill did not have high hopes that they would have enough in excess ores, to meet there needs on the production ships for even a day of operation. It was well known fact that the Earthers were short in the metals department. He had seen the reports from the over flying Raptors of the massive trucks and trailers. They all had been carrying the detritus of war back into the Settlement, for recycling they called it. What he, and all of the Colonials forgot one thing. It was the bottle neck of refining metals that had held up the Earthers. It takes lots of energy, and special tools to do something like that even on a small scale.

The Earthers were being very thorough, in the cleanup of all of the scattered battle fields. Each battle sites had been marked, mapped, and then swapped clean twice. The second sweep was done by a completely new second unit. That way it would be a complete new set of eyes, which could check the area in question. Bill had sent Raptors to some of the cleaned combat sites, without letting the Earthers know about the spot checks. It was then that he found the message, that the Oracles had said Major Weston would leave. In Admiral Adama's option, it should be effective. Sometimes late at night he would just smile, as his mind pulled that image back up in his mind.

Major Weston had used those massive human like war-machines under his command, to move large rocks around on some of the major battle sites visible from an over flying cylons. The rocks made massive letters that you could only be read from above, and were in proper Caprican. Two statements had been laid out on each of those opened fields. They said "Leave" and "Go Away" in very clearly marked out letters. Under those massive rocks letters, were laid the bodies of the all of the human form cylons that had been on the planet's surface, and had not surrender. So they were the ones that had died. They had been stripped of any combat related equipment, before they had been barred in shallow graves under the rocks. Adama liked the way this Major Weston was thinking, in setting up his little warnings to any returning cylons. The cylons had always like using terror as a weapon, going all the way back to the first war. And this Major Weston seemed to take a page from there book, and used it against the machines this time. Adama had just wished that this Major was under his command. He like the way the man was thinking.

As the older Adama was thinking about how to get Major Weston under his command. He started thinking about some of the other interactions that had happened with the Settlement. The trading between the two groups had been going without too many issues. The recovery of loaned material to the Colonials was taking longer, than both sides had hoped for. Several people did not want to give up, or give back the amazing body armor that they had been using months in some cases. There had been some ugly scenes that had been caught by the "press" and then broadcast to the rest of the fleet. Bill had not like it how some of the reports were pitching that it was the Earthers taking Colonial personal property.

The next time it to be happening. It had not taken long to get ugly, that was when one of the Earthers had shown up with another new nifty little device. She ran it over the item in question, and somehow it would show a registry number along with what everyone assumed was the whole history of that item in question. The range on the device was unknown to of the Colonials. But so far it had "found" items over hundred feet away, and impressively well-hidden. Even by the Colonel Tighs standards, one case, the item of being very well hidden. Adama made a note on a handy notepad, and added this technology to the growing list of Earther access things or items. That he would like to find out more about. He would love to put in on every bit of military equipment they had left, or had taken from the cylons. He was thinking that it would also put a kink in the black marketing, of certain prohibited items with in the fleet. Well at least until someone with too much free time on their hands, figured out away on how to counter that new device.

The sale of fresh food had almost stared a riot on some of the grounded ships, which had freer access to interact with the Earthers. Some of the passengers had demanded that the food should just be given to them for free. Like it had been before, with the Algae vat stuff, only they were not going to settle for that soup any more. It was a steep learning curve for some of them, and one they were not happy to receive. A lot of them had simply gotten so used to someone just giving them food, to keep them from starving. And not expecting people taking the handout to do anything in return for the food they had been given, to support the community at large.

Adama was not unhappy with this Earther rule. Now they had to trade their sweat off of here brows, for food that was going to fill their stomachs. It was as throwback to an older time for the Colonials, but it was working. Bill Adama could somehow sense that the moral was slowly improving, among the lost souls that called the fleet home. The first of the ships were just getting plans laid out for their new hydroponics bays to be retrofitted. All Colonials had to do was trade some plant friendly grow bulbs, manpower to learn how to maintain it, and a few other that were willing to get your hands dirty. Then a hand full of Earthers should show up and help. Some of the other manpower was already being trained on the systems for the bays. Those training systems had already had been set up in some tunnels and caves nearby. From what he has being told, they were not showing anything new, hardware wise to the Colonials. But it was the way they were putting the stuff together, that was so novel to say the least. Bill had been briefed by more than one ship's engineer, which had been slacked jawed as they explained what they had seen. The nice thing about the setup, was that it did not need to take the few people with Engineering training to put together.

Adama leaned back in his chair in his cabin and rocked forth, and back letting his mind wonder on its own accord. "I just wonder when the next boot will drop on us. Things have been going too smoothly lately." Thought the Admiral, and he gave himself a little shake that was both mental and physical. He knew better than to tempt fate, like he had just absently mindedly done. Maybe this time she would let him slide. There was a first time for everything after all.

#####

Little did Bill Adama know it? But the other boot was dropping at about the same time he was thinking about it. Fate was not in the mood to give him a break to day. Laura Roslin was in what the Earthers would have called a video teleconference, with the scattered dozen members of the Quorum. Each was on their individual ships they had taken a cabin in as there "home" and power base. Laura was wishing for the unknown number times. That she had just stayed just a school teacher, instead of getting involved in the political game all of those years ago. Dealing with these Frakers was taking more and more, of her time every day. And it seemed like they got less and less done with the time they were eating up.

The Quorum had already broken down in power blocks, again. There were some new faces, but not that many new faces. Laura was betting that some of the missing faces were still there. It was just that now they were working behind the scenes, as each one wanted to have sway over the others. So far she had been able to stay ahead of the games that were being played both in public and behind the scenes. This was mainly because the Earthers only sent messages to Bill, her, or if not them then Saul would get the contact for that matter. She had no doubt that their leadership was being hounded by request from the others, for those direct contacts. She was pretty sure that whenever a response was sent, it came to her office for her first to pass out. She had at first been surprised when a message with an answer would come in to her, that she did not remember asking. At least that was her hope, that the way it was working out. Because some of the questions that were being sent were Fraking stupid, of the first order. She hated to use that word, but sometimes she thought the members of the Quorum were painted rocks with lips on a good day. She now thought that the routing of those messages had been the impetus for this meeting now. The Quorum did not like it, that these Earthers were not dealing with them directly.

As soon as the representative from Turon joined the conference, he started in with yelling at his screen like it was a living person. "How dare they demand that our people have to work? Or they will not give food they need to live on. It's obvious that they have more, than what have been parceling out to us as only they see fit! They are treating us like nothing more some beggars on the street. We must demand that they turn all of the food over to feed the people of the fleet! Why has this situation been allowed to develop this way? Why were we, not brought into the meetings to stop this travesty from starting in the first place." The man was wild eyes, like he as losing his mind, as he yelled out both his demands and questions.

The representative from Satutron jumped in with both feet, as so as the Turon had stopped to get a breath of air to recharge his lungs for the next bought of yelling. This happened so fast, that if sounded like a run on sentence with two different voices out-gassing the words out and tones. "They must be made to get homage to the gods! How dare they allow heresy to go unpunished? They don't even have one temple to the gods. They must tithe to the temps! This must be rectified! We cannot allow them to desecrate this planet any longer. The Gods will not allow this to go on, or we will be punished right along with them! This is the chosen planet by the Lords of Kobal for us! They will pray to the proper Gods or…" The voice behind the threat trailed off, leaving it hanging in the air like a headman's ax.

A third voice came over the line that Laura did not recognize, but the image was from the Turon connection. "They will stop calling themselves Earther, right now! Earth is sacred and for the 13th Tribe, not for these imposters. They will stop it, or we shall rain fire on their heads from our mighty Battlestars. They must be made to repent!" The last bit of the speech had been so high pitched, that even a Daggit would have given the screen a goat eating AstroTurf look.

Laura was having a flash back of a certain meeting back in her tent, with one of the up and coming leaders of the religious orders. She was thinking that he might be hind drafting some of those questions. "Okay I have to put a stop to this! Or they will end up wanting to start another war, this time against other humans. And I bet Bill is wondering where this Fraker is going to get the Battlestars he is ranting about. Because there was no fraking way Bill would call in an orbital strike of any kind. She remembered him saying some time ago. That there was a reason the Colonial Fleet had stopped doing Fraked up stuff like that during the First Cylon War." Thought Laure, but she pulled her fingers well away from the button, which would have turned on her microphone and at the same time show her face the rest of the meeting. Something inside said that she needed to wait a few seconds.

She took a breath to calm down and center her thoughts, before she pushed the button and started talking as slowly and as calmly as she could. It was not easy, even with her political skills. "I think it is my duty to remind everyone. That the Earthers, have said many times, that they are not from the 13th Tribe that we know about. Also as far as I remember from my school days, is that Earth. Well it is just another name for dirt or mud. If this is what, they want to refer to themselves as? Well I say, what is the big Fraking deal? And another thing the only ones calling them the 13 Tribe, are our people." She released the button, and her image went away as soon as the button reset. She did not need to see Tory covering her lips to hide a smile that had cropped up on her face. Laura was just happy that the Earther who installed this system had shown one of her people to do that little trick.

Laura was known not to use rude language, so when she did us it? It drew more attention than when say someone like Saul, would have gotten, if he used the same word in public. It had the effect that she had wanted. And all of the side conversations had stopped. Sometimes it would happen right in mid word. She gave the camera a sly smile as the effect she wanted spread out before her. With a repress of the button, her image went out again as she spoke. "I also should remind the Quorum, that by our laws and there's." She stopped talking and waved a hand around to indicate the area that the Earthers called home. "They own this whole planet, due to being the first people to claim it by occupation, and building improvements on its surface. They have been extremely nice towards us. And they have only enforced their laws and customs, only when we are out of our ships. They could by our laws, have enforced whatever their laws are, on any ship that is in this whole system. Be they landed, docked to a station, or in open space. Just like we do in our space, but they have chosen not to do this. If you want I can give you the Colonial law reference number. I can have it sent to anyone that wants to review it."

She held up her hand to the camera, but still kept talking in her full on lecture mode. "I asked them why, and one of their leaders said to me in a formal setting. That we were under enough stress, and that something like that was so minor. And that it was not worth any troubles it might cause between our people. I think that they have been very understanding towards our people, without asking much in return." She wanted that to settle in to their thick heads. It was important to let them know, that these strangers were going out of their way, to make things easier on the Colonial Refugees. It showed that they cared for their fellow man. And that was something that the Colonials had gotten out of the habit of doing or feeling towards each other, much less a strangers.

The Turon representative snorted and the sound carried over to everyone's ears threw the open microphone, since the fool had not turned off his mic off after talking the first time. Then he started talking to the rest of the meeting. "There Laws? What does it matter about their laws? They have what a few thousand people, total on this planet. They should just be rolled up under a real named colony, like we have done in the past. That way, they will have to do as they are told." He stopped talking after his words reached his own ears, and tried to soften them somewhat. "You know for the good of the Colonies of Man as a whole." The speaker sat back in his chair, with a very smug look on his face. He thought that he had just won this round of the battle. He had given what he had thought was definitive proof, which said he was right. What he had just done was prove, that he had come from the shallow end of his Colonies gene pool.

Laura wanted to rip the smug look off of his face with her short finger nails, but someone beat her too it. Her finger was not any were near the activation button, when she made it stop moving for a fraction of second, at the sound of a new voice. A member from one of the largest temples had always been part of every Quorum meeting for hundreds of years. They rarely spoke during a meeting of the Quorum. Except in the opening and closing prayers that is unless, it was something they felt was very important. So when she spoke out loud, and out of turn. It caught everyone unprepared, including Laura.

The voice did not sound old or weak as it carried threw the speakers on the dozen ships. It sound like it came from a woman who had been trained to project clearly to the back benches of a temple. "And just how are you going to roll them into a Colonial Quorum representative group, if they don't want to? Do you plan on using force to put them under control of a Colony?" Now the tone went from conversational, to domination like someone flipping a light switch in a dark room. "Has that worked so well in our past, or have you forget about that already? How many wars did we have to fight back in the Colonies? All the way back before the cylons were made, we tried to force one Colonial sect to be ruled by a different one. How much blood was spilled for those causes, for and against that type of action?"

Laura could feel the temperature drop all the way over to her ship, as the tone went icy like the heart of a John type of cylons. "Now as I don't recall seeing you combating the cylons occupation. So maybe you don't realize what the people you are talking about are capable of." Somehow the voice got even colder as she spoke at her camera. "I remember my mother talking about fighting a cylon assault regiment back in the 1st war. I also remember doing a few papers about those battles, while I did my four year mandatory service in the military. I am betting that this was before your time, young man. I will tell you that it was not done successfully, but a hand full of times that I can remember off the top of my head. Yes, before you open your mouth again. Admiral Adama was attacking the orbiting Basestars at the same time, but anything that was on the ground or in close orbit of the planet. The Earthers had to make sure was not a problem for the only two surviving human warship combating those cylon three basestars."

Now the voice got a little whimsical, like when you were talking to a young child. "Could Adama have pulled off his "Exodus" plan without them? Yes, I think he could have done it alone if he had to. But there would have been blood spilled, and a lot bloodier than it was. He might have even lost one or both of the Battlestars, and a lot of the refugee ships along with all of the people they carried. We surly would not have been able get everyone one, and every ship off of the muddy plane. That is if, the Admiral did not have help provided from the Earthers." She took a breath and straightens her back. Her chin was now coming up to be more level with the ground.

Laura's eyes went a little wider as she saw the movement and the change in the woman's body language. She had seen this look and move, a few times before today. And it normally heralded a huge bomb about to be dropped, on someone's head in a very public way. Laura also knew that she always did that little move, right before she made a formal pronouncement of some kind. Laura was waiting to see how it was going to break, between the two factions. If the religious leaders came down on the side of the Turon representative, it would hurt her majorly politically after what she had just said in this meeting. Then she had a fear of what it might happen militarily. She had a very good idea what Bill would do, if given those orders as they were just said. She had to hide a little smile as the thought of what he would do, and the Quorum would not like how he told them about his feelings and intentions.

Laura's eyes were drawn back to the screen, like a moth to a flame. The soft but strong voice started at first with a prayer, and then she looked deep into the camera. It was like she was looking into the very souls of all of the people in this meeting, distance be Fraked. She would occasionally look down at something out of camera, while she gave the payer. After the last look off camera, she gave someone a nod, and started to address the meeting again in that rich command voice of hers. "The religious leaders of the temples have found these people friendly, charitable, and considerate to those in need around them. All without asking for much in return, and always making sure first that it would not hurt us in what they were going to be asking for. They might not pray to our gods, but they don't stop our people from worshiping however they please. They have opened there doors to us, and have shed their blood in our cause. They have been here for some time, and in that time we did not find them. And the same is said of the cylons. They could have remained in hiding for us, and the cylons that we were under the thumb of for a long time. But they did not, when they saw us in need."

The head of all of the Temples was on a roll, and used her command voice to drop the hammer. "We have decided that they are friends, and will be treated as such till they prove otherwise. They do not worship the Gods of Kobal, yet. However, we have time to guide them to the light, it they want. But it will not be forced on to them, as they do not force their beliefs on us. We will send out missionary to them, like it is said was done in the old scrolls'. That is the will of the leaders from all of the Temples of Kobal. So say we all." She stopped talking, and waited for anyone to dare say something in challenge to what she had just dropped on the leaders of the Colonies.

Laura was waiting carefully working out what might be going to happen on the other ships, but on one was saying anything. So she did, hoping to still the thunder from someone else. The way she was going to pitch, was going to be in such a way as to defuse the anticipated attack on the temples. "The temple does not have legal voice in the Quorum, but they have always been the moral voice of us all. I am calling a roll call vote, to close any discussion on using military force against the Earthers. I think that we should bring them into the government somehow, but it should be at their pace and without bloodshed. If it's there idea, than that will be better, because if it's not." Laura was shaking a long thin finger at the pickup. "Then it will cause problems latter, and there are too few of us left to have problems like that."

############

Thomas Zarek was visibly upset both with himself and others. It was because that the roll call vote had not been even close. He could not even be happy that it had not been unanimous, against his idea. But with only two members voting against Roslin, the deal was now done forever. And on top of that, he had lost against her, again. No, upset was not accurate. He was so mad; he thought that he could take out a Centurion with his bare hands. He had been working on this plan, since he had been pulled out of that gods forsaking cylon cell. He had been working on it even before, he had put his name on the ballet for acting President of the Colonies. It he had won, he would not have needed this plan, but he had lost.

He had been trading on the fact, that he must have done something very bad, to make the cylon so mad at him. It must been so that those cylons, had to put him in that rat-hole of a cell. It had to be to keep him under control. Unlike Laura who had been out in the free air, and even being seen with different human form cylons during the occupation. On top of that they had given her "stuff". That must have been rewards for her helping the machines, in some way. That was how he had been selling it anyway.

He had taken two days to find out everything, which had happened while he had been in the cell from his long list of contacts. It did not take him but a few hours, to come up with an outline of a few totally different plans for the future. All of which would put him in the seat of power, that he had always felt should have been his. He had talked three members of the Quorum into believing that these Earthers needed to be brought under the power of the Quorum almost without trying. Three others had taken more…effort. After all people with that much technology should not be allowed to run free, at least not without over-site from the proper people within the Colonial government.

He had thought that he had that Fraking witch, right where he wanted her this time. Then the Temples had stepped in and ruin everything in a bat of an eye. They had never stepped in on a decision in front of the Quorum, in his not short memory of political events. So he had not planned on it happening on today, of all days. But they had this time, and all of his hard work had gone right out the airlock with her words. And it had happened in less than a blink of an eye, from his point of view. And on top of that, he had just lost a lot of markers. All of those, that he would be hard press to replace any time soon.

Tom slammed his left hand hard on the table top, it just was not fare. He was looking into his half full glass of amber liquid. It would have been the cheap stuff back home, but it was all he could get his hands on now. And it did not matter who he was, and it had cost him a lot more than it should have back in what he still thought of as the "Real World". With now two of his most promising plans, that had been put down like a rabid daggit. He took a long, deep sip of the amber fluid, and let his mind roam to try to find another way to get to his end goal. Felt a warm glow as it seeped out from his stomach, as the alcohol worked it magic on his body. The goal was to be President of the Colonies, and he would reach it someday. He knew this deep in his bones that it was the job meant for him to take. It just was not going to happen today. That did not mean that he had given up on the idea, not yet anyway.

#############

A lord of Kobal flashed into this plane existence, so fast. That he had to put the butt of his six foot long trident down, just to keep on his feet at being yanked so hard and across so many detentions in one shot. He looked around wondering what the emergency was, that had causes the alarm spell he had cast, to pull him back so abruptly. Someone had interfered with this project. He would still "feel" the spell still. When he put some effort into looking for the spell, he could then "taste" it. As he worked on figuring out why, a second question popped into his head. "Now why would she be here at all?" He checked on what the spell had done. It had only been a dream walking spell, cast on a handful of people this time. Now he smiles as he watches what is going on in this meeting, and a few of the areas. He is very happy about what had happened to his project. He cast another spell and quickly it returned that the plan was now 96.98 percent perfect and as predicted. That was impressive, even if he and now she had helped…. Just a little bit.

Then his smile fell as he looked deep into the ball of light he had cast for to see many possible futures. There were still more problems waiting in the winds, for his little experiment to still have to navigate successfully. There were many pit falls, any one of which could derail his work. He was however enjoying all of the prayers that were coming towards him. He was thinking that he had not felt this refreshed, in a few hundred years. He made another few adjustment spells that might help them threw a couple of the major pitfalls, if they listened. Then he went walking around different ships in orbit, and the village on the planet below. He was wishing that he could spend more time watching these people; they made life so much more fun. But he had a lot of other plans that needed his attention, and his slowly growing power this plan was generating for him.

###########

The butterfly effect is started to spread its wings wider and wider, with the interaction of the Earthers and the Colonials.

 **To be Continued in: Neptune's Revenge: Sailing the Dark Sea**

 **Lessons Learned.**

One. I have had three people offer to be Beta readers. None of them returned the draft chapter I sent them. Now one was maybe fault, I think I sent him the wrong draft copy. Still none of them returned emails.

Two. I had to find out that to stop the wall of text issue. You have use the # and not the underline or other markers. I started with different types of lines and ! and none of them worked until I got to that part of the keyboard.

Three. The more people who write reviews and make suggestions, the better the work will be.

Four. After copy and pasting into the Fan fic program. Always… Always! Make sure to hit the aline text to the left. This will kick start the spell checking software in that program.


	31. Chapter 31 Cpt New Book

INTRO: You need to read Neptune's Revenge before starting this book. The Colonials after joining forces with a group from Rifts Earth had thrown the Cylons off of New Caprica. Now they must repair, rebuild, recover, and then prepare for the future. The Cylons are gone, for now. The now mixed group must work together to find the planet that the Colonial are looking for along with the 13th Tribe that might be living on it, or they both might die off.

To be safe I think Fiction T is the best rating.

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

 **BOOK 2**

 **Neptune's Revenge: Sailing the Dark Sea**

 **Chapter 1 Starbuck and Cards**

New Caprica, 786 Days after the Fall of the Colonies, 3 years 6 month AT

It had now been a full month since the vote of the Quorum. It had not taken long for word of the vote to get out to the rest of the fleet. It had taken only slightly longer for word about what had happened during the meeting to reach the Settlement. Luckily that had reached them before they had found out about the details of what had been discussed.

It had not gone over well for the general population of the Settlement. It took the recent additions from the Colonials to explain why it had happened the way it had. It helped little because of how soundly the the idea had been rejected by almost all of the Colonial governing body. There were still some sore feelings among the Earthers and not a few Colonials about the ideas that the vote had been based on.

The other thing that had helped greatly in getting relations on a better footing was the lottery Admiral Adama had started up for the Earthers. The prize: a seat on a once daily flight on a Raptor for up to eight people to take a trip up to the Battlestar Galactica. He already had some volunteers rounded up to help give those Earthers a nice little tour of the old warship.

Adama hated dealing with any civilians. But he would do what he needed to do if it helped his new but very powerful allies to calm down again. It was amazing how much good will you can get by giving people who had never had access to even very high altitude flight some free rides into space. Followed by a few hours of touring a big spaceship lead by volunteers who spoke passable English most of the time.

Working with those Volunteers had brought one of them to Bill Adma's attention. She had asked for a short private meeting with him not long after she had started her tours. She had told him that the Settlement liked precious metals, as well as what he knew of as strategic metals. That was not a big surprise to him. What was a surprise was that they had an open trade.

Apparently the little wood walled village had had a legal gambling house for some time now. He had been briefed a few times on the economy the Earthers had set up for themselves. He knew it revolved around recharging and the everyday use of those amazing battery-like things called E-clips.

Now this seemed like a secondary economy of some kind, but not like the one that the Colonial black markets was running. He did some checks to make sure it was all true, he had to make sure about a few things on his side of the equation. For one thing, he needed to make sure no one would be alarmed that the military leader of what remained of the Colonial military was interested in that type of information.

Once he was sure, he called Laura and the head of her legal team for a private meeting. Which they then had to postpone while they scoured the fleet for somebody with the right legal background. As soon as the meeting had ended, a few hours later, he pulled out a few items from the ship's safe that very few people knew about. Then he had Starbuck called in to his cabin for a private meeting.

Starbuck had looked like death warmed over every time he had been able to take the time out of his day to see her. Bill had seen her at least once every day since he had found out she was still alive. His family was about as together again as it had been since before the Cylons had blasted them to the Stone Age with the surprise attack.

He had seen the reports. Even the reports his XO Colonel Tigh did not get to see. He had seen detailed medical records that only the doctor or father normally would have access to in more conventional times.

He had no idea what they did to her while she had been in that 'Cell' for so long without any real human contact. But he had seen what Cylons could do to the human mind and body in the First Cylon War and it seemed that, if anything, they had gotten even better at that horrible game of playing with human minds without hurting the physical body. Her husband Samuel T. Anders was trying to help, but the jury was still out on if it was going to be any actual help or not. Maybe it was time to see if a different game would work on fixing whatever was broken with her.

Bill Adama knew that Kara Thrace was supposed to be in his office soon, but with her you never knew when she would show up to most meetings. She was like a daughter to him, he had never thought differently. Even after his youngest son, Zack had died in that Viper training flight. If she was late it was not because she was disrespecting him in any way. It was because she might have seen something shiny on the way to where she was supposed to be.

That was one of the many reasons she was such a great Viper Pilot. She would notice things. Things that others would miss. Even while just walking down the deck of a Battlestar. She could never make it that far on nature hikes, but she could run on a track like there was no tomorrow.

When the knock sounded on the hatch to his cabin, it was ten minutes before Starbuck was due for her meeting with him. Now Bill had no idea who it might be on the other side of the hatch. It should not have been who he was expecting. Starbuck was never early…to anything but a bar that is.

* * *

Starbuck was propped up against one metal wall of the corridor and was waiting outside of Adama's cabin. She was just standing near the hatch to the Admirals Day Cabin, completely ignoring all that passed by. She had been there for some time, but she was just waiting till it was closer to her appointment time. After all it was not like she had anything better to do today. She knew that she was not tracking right, or close to normal even for her.

She was trying her best to get her feet back under her mentally, but she knew that she was not combat ready. And if she knew that, then the Doctor did also. If the Doc reported back to the Old Man about her wrecked mental state, he would pull her Viper flying status, and she would not be allowed to fly.

She did not know what she would do if the Admiral did something like that to her. She told her husband last night about the message to see the older Adama, and what she thought that it might be about. Sam knew how devastating losing her flight status might be, and had taken her in his arms to try to calm her down.

He told her that they would 'find' something to do if it came to that. He told her she was smart, a skilled Viper pilot, and a good frakking operation planner. If they did not want her in combat, that was okay with him because now she would be safer someplace else the next time they got into a fight against the Cylons.

Sam said that there was talk going around in some circles of the fleet. That the Colonials were working on integrating some of the Earther tech into Vipers and Raptors. He said she might be able to get a job as a test pilot or something along those lines.

Starbuck had not thought about them adding some of the Earther tech items into Colonial ships. She did not know if they would pick her up as a test pilot or not. She had a reputation for being the best Pilot in what remained of the Fleet's Viper force but how would that carry over to being a test pilot? The way her luck had been running lately they were more likely to put her in a padded room on one of the other ships rather than let her take on a test piloting or consulting job for new generation Colonial small craft.

She had seen the Earthers' body armor first hand, and even some of their weapons in use. She had thought that they were just amazing after she realized that she was not dreaming them up in her own head. If they could figure out a way add some of that to a Viper, and get it to working even half way right? Now that might be a job she would like to do after all. Even if it meant she was pulled from combat operations…for now.

Now all she had to do was sit around waiting in the access way outside of the elder Adama's day cabin. That never was her strong suit, even when she was hitting on all mental cylinders, and yet she so was doing that today. She checked her watch for what must be the hundredth time in the last half hour, and a deep frown came to her face. She was already starting to get some looks from people passing by, standing there in the metal walled hallway. She was getting jumpy, so as soon as it was close enough to the meeting time to fit her mental picture, she stuck the hard metal hatch with her right fist. That done, she waited to be allowed to enter the room, and most likely find out about her future as a combat Viper pilot.

* * *

Bill checked the desk mounted clock, then looked back at the hatch and ordered his mind to be quiet before addressing the knock. "Enter."

Adama started evaluating her the second it took his very quick brain to realize who it was entering his office. She was early. Her hair was in need of a brush but it was at least clean and so were her clothes. However it was the way she walked and then how she sat in the chair in front of his office desk that told the most about how she was doing mentally.

His Starbuck had always had a predatory and cat-like grace when she moved around the room. Whenever she took a seat, it was more like a bird of prey perching waiting for its next meal. Now she was moving almost like she was stiff, her walking tentative and uncertain. And when she sat in the chair in front of his desk, it was almost like she fell into the chair to hide from something. Far from the bird of prey he was used to seeing.

She was watching him back with scared eyes, again not like a bird of prey at all. He had seen those types of eyes before, but not from his Starbuck. Starbuck had never given any outward sign of being anything, but cocky at least on the outside. He had known her long enough to be able to tell when she was nervous, no matter how well she tried to hide it. But she was never scared.

That was what those eyes were telling him. This was new, and he catalogued it for review later.

Starbuck watched the older Adama watch her. He had not moved a muscle that she could tell. And she was not liking the way he was looking at her without saying a word after telling her to enter his domain. She had not felt like this since Zack had died all those years ago. The elder Adama did not normally use this gaze at her, not like this. She had seen an uncountable number of battle hardened combat veterans fold under that gaze she was getting today, and it was already starting to work on her now.

 _"Well I better let her know what I was thinking, because I think she is about to bolt for the hatch like a cat from a pack of wild daggits,"_ thought Bill.

He sat back in his chair, and let up a little on the look he had been giving her. This position put forward a more relaxed look to most people, and made them relax in turn or response.

"Okay Starbuck, you can breathe now. I have a mission which I would like you to do for me and the fleet. You do not have to do this, but I think it is a good fit for you and more importantly your skills." Bill stopped taking and waited to see how Kara was going to react to the bait he had just dangled in front of her nose.

Starbuck did not expect that statement, and the only thing she could do was blink a few times at the Admiral. She had to stop and think about what the Old Man had said, and after what seemed like hours, she finally gave a reply. She tried to give a 'normal' reply, but it sounded forced even to her ears.

"Sir, I have been dying to get in the cockpit again. Where am I going this time, the Cylon home planet or maybe a run back to Kobal?"

 _"Does he know how broken I am, and he wants me to pull another rabbit out of the hat,"_ thought Kara.

Bill smiled back at her. It was one of his warmer and friendly smiles, at least for the ones that normally came for him. Of course she would assume that it was a secret mission, in command of a Viper or Raptor attack of some kind. "No, Starbuck not this time. I was not thinking about anything like that, just yet. The Doc has to clear you for a return to flight status first anyway. And from what I understand, right now he is backlogged with patching up hurt jocks and crew, physicals, and interviews from non-prisoners. I'm sorry to say, that your medical check out is at the bottom of a long list of reports he still has to finish." Bill tried to keep a stern look as he explained a few things.

That part about the long list of people ahead of her was not exactly true. Sherman Cottle had already looked at her, and talked to Bill about what he had thought was her primary medical condition. Between them, they had moved her name to the bottom of the checkout list. It was hoped that this would let her buy some time for her to come out of her funk by herself.

"What I was thinking about, was another set of skills you have. And ones that I have seen you use more than a few times in this room." He raised one eyebrow at her, and tilted his head to one side. He could see the confused look all over her face. It was at the same time funny and a bit sad. "Have you spent much time with the Earthers, since you were pulled out of that Hades' hole the Cylon had you in Starbuck?" Now he wanted to get her mind to working again.

Kara made a face and tilted her head to one side to match what Bill had done. She was trying to see what Adama was driving at, and she was not that sure where he was still driving at. _"Well you won't find out if you don't answer his question you twit."_

"No, Sir I haven't. I saw a few of them a couple of days ago, in the hangar bay for a tour of the ship. But that is all that I can think of right now. Why?" The last word came out of her mouth, with a just a hint of wonder and concern equally mixed between them.

Bill sat farther back in his chair and rocked back and forth a little more, letting the chair softly squeak as he moved. "Okay Starbuck what we need to do, is something that has not been done in any fleet that I have ever heard of before. I don't think it has needed to happen since maybe at the founding of the Colonies, I bet. We need items for trading with and to these Earthers. That is besides some special lights for their hot houses and food growing tunnels. We need food, and a huge list of high tech items from them."

"What we are short of are items that they need from us. Items that we don't also need as badly as they do. I had hoped to trade some raw materials to them at first and some of our own tech. That has not panned out yet, and after seeing some of what they are carrying around, I don't know what we might be able trade to them tech wise. Right now, they are pretty flush with metal recovered from all of the Centurions and Raiders that they took out in the ground battle. That, and we are also short of those same raw materials. At least until Apollo finds more, and gets back to us. All we have on hand right now, we need for our own use."

"Now here is where you come in on this, Starbuck. You have a well-developed set of skills that we might be able to find is now useful to me and the fleet." He stopped talking, and waited to see how she would respond to what had said. He wanted her to connect all the dots, which he had just laid out for her. If he could get her to start thinking, maybe it would help her pull herself back together again.

Starbuck had no idea what the older Adama was talking about. And the longer she thought about it, the more her head hurt as she tried to catch up to what the Admiral was driving at.

The only skills she was thinking about was what she had as a great pilot. And the ability to frak with Colonel Tigh like there was no tomorrow. Okay, she had also been a good flight instructor once upon a time on a planet too far away to think about right now.

"Sir, maybe I have been in that cell a little too long after all. What exactly are you talking about, Sir? I have no idea on how to make trades." The tone was soft, and sounded as confused as she looked. While she was talking she looked up, and then back down to her hands folded in her lap.

Now Bill smiled at her, and then took a little more pity on her. She normally was a lot faster on the uptake than this. He had given her plenty of hints already. Would something like that affect the skillset that he needed from her now?

"The Earthers like to gamble and drink, almost as much as my other Viper jocks do. They even have a purpose built place for it, and it's all perfectly legal under their government. These are two things that are something, which I remember you have some skills at, yes?" The last words out of his mouth were joined by a single raised eyebrow. He knew that she would understand what he was hinting out. If not, then he was going to have to look at other options to get the job done.

Starbuck was floored so badly, her jaw was swinging open in the breeze. The term was gobsmacked, and it was a lot better fit of a term for the way she was feeling as she heard those words.

Was she hearing this right? Was it that the Old Man wanted her to go drink and gamble? Her mind had by now completely forgotten about the Doc not clearing her for any flying yet. She did a quick head shake. Tried to clear some mental cobwebs that seemed to be clouding her thinking.

Even with the cobwebs gone, she still looked at her commander in utter confusion. "Sir, how would I be able to do that? It's not like I have anything to bankroll me at the tables. If we were only talking about table stakes in the mess hall, now that would be different. I can do that. But you're talking about thousands of cubits per hand to be useful for what I think you have in mind."

"To be a high roller, I have to be able to play the part of one. I've done it for a few hands, after a long tour back in the day, but only a time or three. I don't have the weight to pull it off for a whole night. Much less do something like that for a few nights in a row. Is something like this even legal?" Normally being legal would not have rated very high in Starbuck's list of things to be concerned about, but today it was a different matter. She had spent too long in a prison cell recently, and was not looking forward to spending any more time in one if she did not have to. Cylon or otherwise.

Bill Adama did not say a word at first, and his face was schooled as he reached down one side of his desk. He slowly pulled open the topmost drawer of his old and battered desk open. From there he pulled out a small but thick leather pouch, and put it on the desktop in front of them both. He did not open the leather pouch, but he kept his right hand on the tooled leather.

"I have asked around, and under their laws, which you will need to review by the way, it is legal. As for the bank rolling... I will front you the money, with this." He pushed the pouch closer to her without saying a word more. He was inviting her to take the leather package, and open it to see what he was talking about as her funding for gambling.

Starbuck's face now had an even more confused expression on it as Bill Adama pulled his hand back to his side of the desk. But she leaned forward anyway without speaking, and picked up the leather object from the desk top. Bill looked back at her like a father would and smiled. Giving the nonverbal cue for her to continue.

Starbuck opened the leather pouch and poured the items into her open left hand. In her palm was now a mix of ten silver and gold cubits shining in the cabin's light with the Colonial Navy seal stamped on them. The normal face value was not that much compared to what she was used to. But now? She had never held this much real and pure gold and silver in her hands before in her life. Those ten odd shaped coins were now equal to a few years of back pay. At least for what they were trading at within the Rag Tag fleet.

Starbuck quickly put the metal cubits back into the leather pouch, and tied it back closed so that they would not fall out when carried. She was just using the time it took to tie the leather strings and fold the tooled leather to get her mind working again.

"Sir, what's the catch?" She knew that the older Adama would not throw her out the air lock. That is unless he had to, and the reward was totally huge for a lot of people. Like save the whole fleet, and every person within it, huge. But there just had be more to this than he had said to her, so far.

Bill tilted his head down a little, and looked at her over his glasses at her without at the same time glaring at her. "That is good, you're thinking and planning out moves or counter moves. I was starting to worry there for a second that you might not be ready for something like this. The basic idea of the plan, if you decide to take this mission after all, is that you will be listed as supporting in fixing our supply issues in a military capacity while you are dirtside."

Bill held one of his hands up, because he could see Kara starting to move. "This is legal under their laws. And I will make sure all of the right paperwork is done, so that you are covered from anything that might come down from a certain few of our people. You can keep ten percent of all winnings. You can also take up to ten percent of any winnings, and use it towards living expenses for you and your husband. Everything else you bring in will be used to buy what we need to support the fleet." Bill put his hands down and gripped his high back chair's arms.

"So are you in or not? If not, I understand. But I will have to go to the mess hall, and see who else might be game or have the gaming skills to pull this off." He was pretty sure that he knew which way she was going jump, but he felt that he needed to give her a way out just in case it turned out that he was wrong. She was family after all.

Starbuck now leaned back deeper into the chair after the hand movement that had stropped her question mid lips. She could not allow someone else to represent the fleet at the card table. It would be like a daggit letting a new dog use its favorite chew toy. Something like that was just not going to happen. Not without a big time fight first.

"Okay I'm in, but what happens if I lose all of this?" She pointed a long thin arm and pointed a thin finger at the brown leather pouch in her other hand. "I'm good, but I don't think I'll know the games these people like to play. And well, it's called gambling after all, and not winning." She tossed the bag of cubits two feet into the air, and caught it again like it was nothing at all. A soft jingling sound came from the metal cubits hitting each other inside the little bag, as leather made contact with her open palm.

Bill rose from behind his desk and went to a side table along one of the walls of his cabin. He made a show of pouring two large glasses of Ambrosia from a nice cut crystal decanter. When he returned to the desk area, he sat beside his almost daughter, and handed one of the two quarter filled glasses to her. "If you lose it, I can draw out some more, but it is not unlimited. So don't blow it all. Because I will have to pay it back if this plan blows up in our face."

"I need you both ready and packed right the frak now. I was going on the evening Raptor to the Settlement tonight. I would like you and your husband to join me on the trip down. I have a meeting with their leadership, and I want you to start as soon as possible. While I'm there, I can personally make sure that you're listed correctly with the leadership of the Settlement. That way no one can say that they didn't know what you're doing and who you were doing it for."

"If you can't make it, then you can try to catch the normal Raptor run in the morning. I would, however, really prefer you ride down with me." He had changed his mind at the last minute, and when she agreed to do the job. Originally it was planned out that they would fly down in the morning, now he wanted her to ride down with him. It should not be that big of a deal for Kara and Sam. After all most of the surviving Colonials did not have much to pack any more.

Kara did not say anything for a few seconds, as she fully made up her mind about what she was going to do. She looked down at the drink in her hand, then looked back up to Bill and gave a nod of understanding to what he had said.

Bill gave an answering nod, and they touched glasses and drank deeply of the amber liquid. It was just early in afternoon, but after the last few years, it really did not matter to them when they had a stiff drink among friends and family. For the next two hours the pair talked and finished the drink that Bill had poured for them.

It was only small talk, but it was the key that would start her on the road to coming to grips with what happened to her. She never would be back to what anyone could call normal, but a long road to travel was started with but a small step onto the pavement. She never even thought that she might want to check with her husband about the short notice relocation that she had been asked to do. Packing would be quick between the two of them. They might have a small rucksack or two full of personnel items including clothes between them.

* * *

Three hours after Starbuck had left the Admiral's Day Cabin, she was in the only hangar bay left on the Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck and her husband were part of a small group that boarded the Raptor marked for launching at one end of the overworked small craft support area. They only people on the small craft tonight were the pilot, the ECO, Adama, Starbuck, and Anders along with a few rucksacks on the floor of the small craft. It would have been filled with more, at least eight more people normally, but once Adama had put his name on the passenger list for this bird, the staff moved everyone else from that flight and put them on other flights with only a message that they had been bumped. This was done without the Admiral's knowledge. However he would have been both grateful, and a little annoyed that they had used his rank for his own advantage.

This will be Bill Adama's only second flight to the planetside settlement to date. He had too much to do to just be able to take a short hop down. Secretly he was hoping that this would change in the near future. Only a few people in the fleet knew why this meeting was going to take place. Most, upon seeing the Admiral going down gravity well, would just assume it was a sightseeing trip of some kind.

Bill could only wish he could take the time off, and just do some sightseeing or fishing for that matter. He knew that this was going to be a stressful trip. Adama tried to distract himself by watching the ground come up towards them as they cleared the high level cloud cover. As they flew over the seaward mountains, and then lined up on the improvised landing pad it was an amazing sight to distract the older Adama.

If this bit of land had been back on one of the planets in the Colonies, it would have been a very high end resort of some kind by the time that Bill Adama's farther was born. That was if any of the visitors could forget about the cold and rain that plagued this planet.

"This is where we should have put up a camp, instead of the muddy plain like Baltar demanded we should do." This was mumbled by the military commander as he looked out the side window of the Raptor in a low voice that dripped with venom.

As the Raptor continued its descent, his mind raced with thoughts that went through his mind in pain filled lightning bolts. "If we had just taken the time to plan a little more or better, then maybe the Cylons would have had a different reception than they got. When they found this planet, they might not have found us such an easy pushover. That Gods frakking damned Baltar. If they had not rushed so much when they first got to this system. Then things could have been so much different this time."

Adama was so deep in thought that he did not even realize that they had landed in the grassy area until the hatch popped open and the cool damp air rushed into the warm little transport craft he was riding in. After being stuck on a ship for so long the cold, the damp air hit Bill like a slap in the face.

The pilot on this run was one of the new and growing pool of recruits. One that had just finished the flight basic course on board one of the Battlestars. Both of the crew members were waiting for Adama, who, according to tradition should exit the Raptor first on any non-combat mission. He had to wave them to exit their stations, to show that he was ready for the craft to be emptied. No one would exit the craft until he checked a few items that one part of his brain had noticed on the flight down.

No one was waiting on the flattened tall grass of the space that had been set aside as the landing area. _"Well, it seems they are waiting for me."_ Thought Adama to himself as he kept his face from showing what was on his mind.

"Crew." Any namepatch on the obviously young pilot's flightsuit was obscured by the protective vest. If they had even gotten around to making him one. This one was so new that Bill hadn't gotten to know him yet and hadn't yet earned a callsign that he could recall. Bill felt himself sigh at the squeaky new pilot. "One of you can go into town, at a time. But the one that stays by the craft has to stay alert at all times." With the directions to the Raptor crew given, it started to empty out the one exit. But the people did not go far from the hatch after making the short hop from the low slung wing to the grass covered ground.

When Adama exited the craft, and put his first foot on the grass covered ground, the young newly qualified pilot snapped a very sharp salute. He was still standing on the wing when he sang out, "Sir! We will be ready to go whenever you're ready to lift, sir!"

The young pilot's voice kept getting higher and higher, until it almost broke from the young throat. Bill took four years off his estimate of the young man's age with the breaking of his voice. He had to fight to not start shaking his head in disbelief at the young man's age.

"Was I ever that young?" Bill wondered.

He forced himself to just nod at the young crewmen. Before he could say more. Bill heard a familiar sound coming towards him, and it was one that was not known to be used by the Earthers. He and the rest of the group turned to watch two Colonial military cargo trucks loaded to almost overflowing with metal salvage visible over their high walled sides.

The wheeled cargo trucks had come rumbling out of the woods only a few dozen yards away. They quickly went from the tree line, across the open ground, and into an open wood clad gate. That gate just as quickly, closed behind the two trucks. At first Bill did not understand what he was seeing, and then remembered the report about the attack on the Wood cutting detail. The one that had been so successful for both the Earthers and the Colonial units out in the forest. That must have been were the Earthers got those Colonial made military class cargo trucks. Because Bill was pretty sure that those trucks had not come from any of his ships.

After the trucks were both gone from sight and hearing, Bill turned to look at the odd couple standing next to him. The Colonial wide known sports star and the Viper pilot from the wrong side of the spaceport were the definition of an odd couple if there ever was one.

The pair were not holding hands, but they were standing so close together that they were almost in each other's pocket. He hoped that they were on the way to patching things up between them. He was not sure that their pairing was a good idea, but he could tell that Sam loved Starbuck. He also knew that you could never know who Starbuck was bound to fall for.

"Okay, you two. There's small log hotel set up near the building that they call Warehouse One. That should do till you can find other arrangements that might fit you two better." Bill turned slightly so that he was center on the woman.

"Starbuck you have the list of items I am looking for?" He gave the short haired blonde woman a slight nod of his head to emphasize his question. He would be standing there until she replied to what he had asked.

She patted a pocket on her field jacket with her right hand, but did not say a word.

Adama nodded accepting that she did indeed have the object in question on her person. "Okay let me know how things are going after you get settled in. I don't need or expect daily contact, but don't make me have to call you for an update." He looked back at the gate that had now re-opened and let an open topped hovercar exit the wood clad device. It was heading toward him about as fast as a human could run on open ground, so he assumed it was for him.

Looking back at the two warriors, he shook hands with them one last time. "Good luck. Remember, we need that stuff as fast as you can get me the funds to buy them myself or the items. Apollo should be back in a week or two, but you know I don't like to have a single point of failure anywhere in a plan if I can help it." He gave them a smile, as he boarded the now stopped hover car two steps away from him.

Bill was able to watch the two Colonials pick up their few bags, and start to walk to the Wood clad wall and gate under their own power. He wished he could have dropped them off at this Warehouse One place, but this was a very small little hover car that only had one open seat. Maybe it was best for them to walk around some on their own. Then they could get a better feeling about the layout of this strange town while they made their way to their home for the next few days. Besides, you never know. They might need the alone time without dad being around.

That was Bill Adama's last thought of the pair as the small hover car went through the defensive gates, and he lost sight of the two. It did not take long for the little hover car to catch up and pass the two scrap metal filled cargo trucks. It seemed to him that the cargo trucks were also going to one of the two ocean-going ships, that he was also heading towards.

For some reason, that stuck in his mind as a possibly important piece of information to add to the still limited data on these people. He had the feeling that the Colonials knew more about the Cylons than they did of this group. That was not true but it did feel that way sometimes.

As he worked on those facts, he started to wonder. _"Why were they not storing all of that salvage metal in one of the warehouses on dry land?"_ He did not doubt that there was some kind of a reason for it. The leadership of these humans did not strike him as people that just did things without putting at least some thought into it first. He was wishing that he could say the same for most of his people's leadership throughout their blood soaked history.

The meeting Bill was headed to was on the more heavily armed of the two ships in the protected bay. It was strangely named, and it caused a lot of confusion on the Colonial ships that held people that were more religiously inclined. That had been when the whole Colonial fleet had found out that in the old scrolls, Neptune turned out to be another name for the water God Poseidon in Colonial legends. But the Earthers had claimed repeatedly and very publicly, not to know about the Lords of Kobol.

In the end it was chalked up to be more lost knowledge on the Earthers' part. All because of the two hundred plus year Dark Age, the one that they had said that they had just come out of as a planet.

This time the meeting Bill was going to was not taking place in the main meeting room, but in the command section near the top most deck of the ship. It was a good view of the rest of the forward part of the long ship, and Adama took advantage of it so that he could see for himself the ship in the fading light of the setting local sun.

On the sly, Bill had ordered the Raptors to take as many images as they could whenever they overflew the Settlement. The images that were produced were not as helpful as he had hoped they would be. They did, however, give him a better idea about the ships that were the center of the village, as well as let him take his time reviewing the weapons they were both packing.

The Earthers on the ships had not done any weapons test since they had made contact, but the Admiral knew that they still held different types of drills on the ships. That way the ship would still be combat ready if the need ever arose from the ashes of what remained of the Cylons. Saul had remarked that the Earthers did not know the term 'letting your guard down'. Bill thought maybe that was another thing that they could teach the average Colonial.

* * *

Adama was looking out the massive front window on the ships bridge, when Kelly walked up to his side without out making that much noise. They shook hands then went to the back of command section, where the translation computer was already set up and waiting on them to use for tonight's conference.

Kelly started off the meeting between the now complete four person meeting, now that the last person had arrived. "Good to see you again Admiral. Have you got any word back yet from your scouting and mining mission?"

The fact that some of the Colonial ships were gone was common knowledge to both groups of people. But when they were planning to return, was a very closely held secret of the Colonial Military. And the limited space watching capabilities of the Earthers made it even harder to gain the requested information on their own. Kelly was fishing, and even without the sly little smile on his face, Bill knew what he was doing. He fully understood why the attempt at fishing had been made.

 _"Right to the point okay, I can deal with that,"_ thought Bill while he kept his face as bland as he could. "No, but they are not supposed to be back for another week or two. It they come back too early, then that would mean that they haven't found any raw material that we need. Or that they found Cylons lurking around close by. I'm just hoping that they've not found any Cylons or other dangers while looking around this nebula."

 _You wanted to get to point, so I will do the same Captain Kelly. Now let's see how you like being put on the spot._ "What have your people decided?" He touched a copy of the image that had been drawn over a month ago. They were tacked to the back bulkhead at head height near where he was standing.

It was a different member of the three man leaderships group. It was the one that normally did not say much on military or similar matters. "It was not a unanimous decision, but a super majority did vote to heed the advice from the oracles. That is one of the main reasons we wanted to have this meeting tonight, Admiral. How will we go about it?"

Max was looking and studying the Colonial military leader, trying to read any hint that he might let slip. The votes had been cast, tabulated and reviewed twice already. Just under 89.7 percent of voters had decided to leave the planet. What were the ones that voted against it going to do, no one knew yet. Not even the ones that had voted no to joining the Colonials. Max, Bob and Kelly were starting to look at different ways to make sure that the entire population left with the Colonials when it was time.

Adama smiled a very political smile, one he copied from Roslin some time ago. He was very glad that they would be joining them on the trip to find their 13th Tribe's version of Earth. He was jumping for joy on the inside, but he wanted them to think that he had his doubts about them joining his people.

"Okay, I will start making some plans on our end. It seems obvious to Laura and me, that someone wants you to come on our little mission. And has figuratively pointed us in a specific direction that they would like use to take. We just need to find out if we can do what this hint seems to want us to."

Bill let a little air out of lungs in a sigh that carried to the others. This was going like he hoped and had talked to Laura about. Unfortunately he knew that down the road, and maybe not even that far down the road, they were going to have problems. And he was betting that they were not going to be from the small side of the problem tree when they came to smack them in the face. Then again, there were many stories among the Colonials about the kinds of trouble a mortal could find themselves in if they went against what the gods had been trying to push them to do in the first place. Bill was betting that he could play on those stories when the time was right.

Bill did not let any of those last thoughts show on his face, but it took some effort. "I was hoping that your people would vote in favor of joining us. I have already had some of my people look at my copy of the drawings. I wanted to see if it could be done, with what we have on hand."

He looked around the room. This was partly to buy some time, and partly to let the computer translate what he had just said to them. "They have not had much time to work things out, just from the two pages we have been given. At the same time, we have to get all of the other ships ready for another long trip, and we don't know what we will find while my people are digging into their guts. If you have any people who might be helpful in any way, let me know. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will see something on those sheets that we might have missed."

Bill Adama stopped talking, and took the time to look each person in the eyes, and his mouth turned into a deep frown after looking at them. "I don't know if we will be able to do what this drawings seem to suggest we need to do. Back home, we had a Design Bureau with thousands of very smart people and massive computer support who did this kind of stuff every day. And it still would have taken years to plan something like this out." Bill felt the stress building up as he told these people, about the magnitude of what was waiting for them.

He had to give himself a little shake and decided to change the topic, a little bit. "Speaking of new ideas, the Acting President asked me to pass a long a thank you for getting the first Hydroponics rooms up and running already. The training of the people on how to use them will be a huge help. I don't know if you know how much this is a game changer for our people. We were doing okay living on vat algae and what we had in storage. But it was not great, and it was starting to cause other health problems among our younger ones. That brings me back to the subject of trading. We are short on things to trade, so I dropped off one of my officers, a Captain Kara Thrace and her husband at your village. They are, well, working on ways to find trade items for us, and to get her used to people again. She was one the people who were held long term by the Cylons before your ground attack was able to spring them." He did not need to say more. The stories of what those few survivors among the long term prisoners had gone through, had been told and investigated by both groups.

That struck a cord with the three other men. They had read the very detailed reports that had come out of 'The Building' weeks ago. They had put three of the human form Cylons to death after they were proven to be directly involved in the horrendous crimes committed within that ugly prefab building.

The form of death had made use of the water, as befitting naval people like the Settlement's leadership. After the trial that was very public, they had taken the three Cylons out on a boat to the open ocean two days after the verdict had come out. They had been given a final meal that was the best the Settlement could provide.

They had tied thick green vine ropes to all three of the Cylons' legs with three hundred pounds of rock weight. Then they were pushed out of the boat in one group into the deep, cold, and dark water of the ocean. They had been about two miles past the protected bay's boundaries.

The Cylon named Kathy had been on the little boat. She was there to make sure that it was done according to the Earthers' laws as they were written down. To some of the Colonials' surprise, it had been her idea on the method of killing the Cylons while the trial was taking place. So very little could be pointed to as targeting or prisoner abuse by the other Cylons at the punishment being given out.

The human forms might have been part machine, but they would not go to waste. Something in the deep water would take care of the bodies. In time.

Adama took the silence going on around him, to keep to his notes that he wanted to cover. "How is the battlefield salvage business these days? I saw two of our old cargo trucks coming in, right after I landed. They looked to be overfull of metal that looked like it was used Cylon parts."

Kelly looked up from the glowing screen of the computer, and waved another man over to join the group in the meeting. It was a person that Adama had not met yet. If he had, he did not remember the man, and he had always been good at remembering faces. Kelly pointed to the man now beside him, but not blocking the large display screen that made the meeting possible. "This is Hugh Lloyd. He is in charge of our supplies, and reports straight to us. I would like it if he can make contact with your officers, to see if he can help with your supply issues. "Hugh would you please brief the Admiral on what we were talking about an hour ago?" As Kelly was talking, Max and Bob were looking at the Colonial.

Adama and Hugh shook hands and maintained eye contact. "Sir, it is nice to be able to put a face to your voice. The trucks you saw were the last ones we think will be coming back to us in fully loaded. We have cleaned up, and covered our tracks to, all of the major combat sites. When the Cylons do come back, they will have very little to go on beyond the odd clue we've missed here or there. We hope."

"We also think we picked off the last of the roaming Cylons in the forest, but there is no way to be a hundred percent sure of that. It will be nice to be able to use our limited hauling capabilities on other projects that need to be done just as badly." Hugh pulled out a small electronic device from an inner pocket, and looked quickly down at its small display.

With a fresh look at his notes Hugh pushed on with the reason that he had been waiting on the sides lines of this meeting until just now. "Besides the metal we have been collecting. We were able to find some large deposits of Oralloy and Lithium rich clay that you asked for. The clay was in an old river bed about four hundred miles from here, and we should have only few problems pulling it out of the ground. The hardest part will be making sure that we do it in such a way that we do not leave any markers for the Cylons to find after we're done getting what we need. The Oralloy ore is going to be harder to get our hands on, because it's under water. But that has the advantage of the mining operations being very easy to hide. We are going to need to do so much more to it compared to the clay, hiding it on land might have been impossible. We hope to start pulling out both ore types in a few days. How much of each type of ore will you need to make a viable weapon?" No one that had come from Earth knew how to make a nuclear weapon. Much less have any idea on how many tons or pounds of the different types of ore would be needed to make one.

Adama was glad he had not been caught flat footed with this information about finding the ores they needed. The captain of one of the grounded ships had heard and passed the word on. It had caused a bit of joy to stir in the older Adama's heart when the word reached him.

He did some quick math in his head. He had most of the numbers already done in case this came up today. In the back of his mind, he had been thinking about bringing up the subject just before the meeting was about to break up. Now Bill did not have to wait.

"It mostly depends on the grade of the ore you can get from the deposits you've found. I think that it took us about two thousand tons of average grade ore, to make a single one-ten kilogram warhead. That's what we usually use for one of our capital launched missiles. A weapon of that size will yield up to one-fifty Kilotons of force on detonation on a target. The warheads that we normally mount on the Raptors or Vipers are smaller weapons, but it's just as hard for us to make one of the smaller missiles as it does for a capital sized one. Now that we are out of usable missile casings we'll have to build them both from scratch now. I think going for the bigger punch is the way to go for right now. That is if you can get the ores to us."

Bill folded his arms and hands behind his back and set his feet shoulder width apart. Now for the hard part he thought to himself, as he got into his full commanders pose. "How will we handle the ore trade, it's not like we have a lot to offer right now? I would think that element 235 or 92 as you normally call it, is going to be expensive to recover, but not that much less than the clays that are needed for the yield boosters. Or do you want to hold off recovering the ores until my people have enough of what you need?"

Hugh looked at the other three men, but did not say anything as a reply to the Colonial Admiral. This was not his area of responsibility, so he kept his lips closed and let the bosses cover that little issue on trade and timing. He did not agree with the plan that had been discussed by the trio last night, but it was not his call. He knew that he was going to have to work with whatever came out of the meeting.

Kelly looked around the group in the meeting also, but it was purely for show. The three of them had spent hours and hours debating and trying to predict how this conversation would play out. Now it was time to see if they were right or not. If not, they had a few counter plans already worked out, but they were not as helpful for the people from Earth. "What we were thinking is that we would like to set up some kind of a trade in kind arrangement. If you say that you need two thousand tons of ore per weapon, maybe if we mine, say ten thousand tons of ore for you, then our people will get one weapon of our own of the same size that you are making for your defenses. How does that sound?" Kelly made sure not to smile as he made his pitch. That would have ruined what he was trying to work out.

Adama was not sure at first how he should handle this flow of events. They were talking about him giving up a weapon of mass destruction to people that he barely knew. Even if they had been very helpful and had been so for a while without much in the way of reservations.

He knew that the best way to judge people was to see how they acted when they were not looking for a reward. They had proven themselves already a number of times using that standard. That they were friendly, and they were planning on leaving this planet with his people in the future was also not in question. Then again, the last time he had given up a nuke to someone that he had thought knew how to take care of one, it had ended up blowing one of the civilian ships out of space. That was not a good track record, but you had to start somewhere.

"That seems a bit cheap for you to get a nuclear weapon out of the deal." Bill stopped talking mid-way through his thought, and made an odd face. What would having ten new anti-ship nuclear warhead missiles be worth to him? More importantly, how many civilians could be saved with those ship killers when the Cylons found them again?

It did not take Bill long to figure out the answer to those questions. He needed to cut one loophole that he had already seen in this offer. He did not want to link this deal to tons of ore, in case the ore was low quality or just useless rocks.

"If we can make ten warheads, then I will sign over one to your leadership. Any more than that one warhead and you're going to have to talk to Roslin. But that is only after I have been able to build the other nine weapons first. My people have the skill, equipment, and the energy to do the work. Yours will be supplying the raw material, but it's just rocks and mud without us to do the work to get the weapons ready. On the other hand, without you supplying the ores, we will not have the warheads we need." Bill was still speaking, and then stopped when he noticed the other people in the meeting looked happy with what he was saying.

Kelly had a big smile with lots of white teeth showing. Some would say he had a huge smile on his face. It was right then that the elder Adama realized he had unknowingly left meat on the bone in this little side negotiation. So he was not surprised when Kelly spoke. Still smiling at him. "If you make ten weapons, we will get one. The last one that is made. That's a deal, Admiral."

Now Kelly let the smile fall from his face as he filled in the Admiral on what they were going to do with the weapon. "Our plan is to see if it will mount on one of the few Long range missile weapons we have left. After that one weapon is turned over. We will deal with the civilian leadership of the Fleet on a longer ranged plan. My people understand that this will be on case by case basis. I think that is agreeable."

The other two men nodded their heads with matching grins. It the rest of the meeting went this well, it would be a great evening. The three men from Earth were thinking long term about getting these weapons. Of course it would be useful against Cylon Baseships when they left this planet. Beyond that however, it would also be something for when they found Earth. They wanted their small group of people to have the big dog of weapons once they got back to Rifts Earth. The three men knew without a doubt that the Collation States would be coming at them with everything they had.

Hugh could not help himself and smiled that this had gone so much better than he had thought it would or had even hopped to expect. It did prove that some of the Colonials would do just about anything to get what they thought they needed to fight for their survival against the Cylons.

Hugh thought that this was a good thing. Too many of the ones he had seen lately looked like abused animals. "Well that is one thing down, Admiral. I'm glad you brought up trade between our people. We have been working on bring a third armor production plant on line. I have a list of parts, which your ships might be able to make us so that we can build the thing. That third plant will speed up our production to around twenty sheets of the four foot by four foot by one-eighth inch armor sheets on average per day." Hugh did not consider himself a smart man, only average one in the intelligence. But he could see the gears turn in the Colonial Admiral's eyes. As clear as day as he read the computer screen.

Hugh handed over an off white folder which held about thirty sheets of paper inside it. "I would not get my hopes up, Sir. What we need to be made for us are standard items that we are running short of for the whole Settlement. They start with screws, nuts, bolts, bearings and various mounting plates. So there is nothing in there that we would call proprietary technology or anything like that. At least not yet. Most of the items in there are things we would like to ask you to make for us. After filling our orders for the plant, of course. They should sell very well to the Settlement as a whole. They also should be very easy for your ships to turn out, without delaying production of spare parts for the other ships by any measurable amount."

Adama took the rectangle folder and opened it to reveal the white pages within. It was still strange not to have the cut corner look of Colonial stock, but that was just a small aesthetic after all. He slowly flipped through the pages filled with engineering diagrams and notes.

There did not seem to be anything special on those pages that he flipped through. The other man had been right. When they first asked about supply parts to help build up their armor production, Bill had thought about finally being able see how they did the magic that they did with their armor plate. Something the Colonials could possibly copy for their own use. These were terribly mundane in comparison.

When he had gone through each page he nodded to the man. "I don't see anything that might have a technical hurdle in production. It was nice that you wrote them out in Caprican. Most of my people can only say a simple greeting in your tongue, if that. If you could provide physical samples as well so we can verify that the specifications translate properly through the language barrier, that would be the best."

The idea of selling simple types of mounting hardware had not occurred to anyone on his staff. The monster called 'assumption' had struck the Colonials again. He could not count how many times he had had to send requests to the machine shops for the same types of items for his own ship. You just don't think about how many nails it takes to build a home, or how many bolts get stripped to unusability every day. Adama did not know this, but there is a reason that nails are measured in a term called a penny in the United States. And a Penny was also used as a measure of value.

Hugh nodded back to the Colonial. "I'm not surprised. We've tried to limit the different sizes and styles that we use ourselves after we started to run short of those items. We also have the first load of Cylon and Colonial weapons along with the ballistic ammunition that work with them. All ready for pickup whenever you're ready for them. Recovered missiles have been in shorter supply than we had expected, so I cannot give you a time to pick those up just yet."

Hugh smiled and held out his right hand. This was the signal that he was done with his planned part of the meeting. "I look forward to doing more business with you or your representatives later." Hugh was thinking that if he could finally deal with someone that was not one of the key power players, he might be able to move things along a lot faster than they had been moving of late. After all the Fleet Admiral only had so many hours to work with in a day that he could devote to all the things under his command. Someone with less rank might be able to speed more time working on the issue he needed to complete to help the people he worked for.

The hands were shook between the two men. From the tone he had heard coming from Hugh, Bill did not think later was going to be too much farther down the road. It was just a feeling he was getting from the rest of the men standing around the table. Bill was thinking that it was good thing that he was getting support from these people and his own to get things working faster. Adama had to fight down a wry smile. It was a strange feeling to not have everything go through him first before they could get done.

Captain Kelly thanked Hugh, but the Head of the Supply Department did not walk far from the table after being thanked. This reinforced the hunch that was in the back of the Colonial's mind. Captain Kelly then went back to talking to the Admiral, and the rest of the group in this meeting. "Now, for the next point of business we need to cover tonight. When we had our first meeting with you, we said that we have some legal issues and concerns. One, we have a set dogma about certain freedoms for our people to include freedom of religion. Do you and the rest of the Colonial leadership have a way to guarantee that we will not be absorbed. And our belief systems or legal system will not be flushed out an airlock after we join your group?" It had not taken long for the Colonial legal penalty for what they called heresy to make the rounds of the Settlement. It also had not taken long for it to be compared to something out of a nightmare.

Adams looked at them and he could not stop the poleaxed looked showing on his face. This was a 180 degree change in the flow of the meeting, and not one he ever suspected would come up tonight. "I have not put much time into thinking about that subject Captain Kelly. But I'm betting you all have come up with something on that matter already that you can work with. So why don't you lay it out on the table and let's all have a look at it?"

"I do think that you need to bring this up with the Acting President, not me. This is more her area of operation. I handle the Military side of things. The internal workings of which I'm sure of." Adama let a thin smile come to his face, but it did not take a lot of political savvy to know that it was not a real look. He was just trying to fight his way out of a corner, that he had just taken a bite out of his butt.

The three Earthers nodded to the elder Adama, but Captain Kelly pointed to the drawing. "We have a plan or two, but we wanted to show you something first. We wanted to see if this was a good place to start, or if you had any other suggestions." What Kelly was pointing at were copies of the two sheets of line drawings now on display on the table top. Bill had no idea who had put the table there, but it had not been there a few minutes before. "You can see that basically the hulls of both ships of our large ships have been somehow grafted on to one of your Battlestar warships. Why don't we use the same system that has worked out so far on the ground? Your laws work on your ships, but on the grafted parts that are made up of Bob's and mine ships. Our laws are the ones enforced, and by our people." Kelly licked his lips, and tried to hide that this was one of the few times that he was very uncomfortable with what he had pitched in an upper level meeting.

Kelly could feel his co-leaders beside him and for some reason it felt better. "If your military is like any I have dealt with on my planet, you are going to bring up that split commands fail in combat. It is one of the golden rules of command where we come from. We have all agreed that you're the senor warship commander. And all of the weapons on our ships would be linked to your command, and be directed as such by your CIC. But the rules and laws of the people living in that area would be what we have always thought of as being normal. Those areas will also be represented by a governing body of their choosing that also lives and works in that area that is under 'Earther control' for lack of a better term."

Adama was trying to think on his feet, and had already come to one conclusion. The hard part would be whether he was going to be able to communicate it. They had just made a few good points, and ones that he had not thought of. This was something that he was not used to having to do. He hated to deal with politics of any sort at any time. But it seemed like he had or been having to do that more and more. Ever since he had gathered what was left of the Colonial ships at Ragnar Anchorage, and got them to follow him away from Colonial space looking for Earth and the Thirteenth Tribe. "I can see where your coming from with most of those issues. This is again, more of a political item than a military one. If you have an idea written down, I will pass it along to our Acting President, as an official request. Other than that I think it might work, but I also think that this needs to be closely studied." Bill made a face then locked eyes with Kelly. He wanted to let these people know that he was taking what they had said seriously. "I will remember what your people did for my people, when you did not have to. You could have just stayed hidden, and no one would have known you were here."

The three men nodded, and Captain Kelly began to speak again. This time he was leaning a little more forward than he had been before. It was a more predatory pose, and Adama did not think that it was an unplanned maneuver on Kelly's part. They wanted something big, and this ship's captain was not sure they were going to get it without a lot of horse trading.

"That is a good place to start. At least something is on the table from a starting point to be marked out. Now about defenses, we have quite a bit of combat power, which is higher tech than your used to having to deal with. You have never had to plan how to use it or how to plan to defend against it. We want to keep control of most of it." Kelly gave Bill a sly and knowing smile. "We know that you're trying to work on it in the dark. By the way, how is that modified Viper with three twin lasers mounted in place of your KEW's working out for your people?" Kelly had just thrown a thick beef steak on the table for the Colonial to chew on.

Bill made his face go very still and he kept his mouth from opening up. _"Well Frak, so much for keeping that a bit secret for a while longer"_ thought Adama. We told them that we were going to be working on integrated some of their technology into our weapons. But Frak, how did they find out so much about it already. "We are still working on plans, and some rough ideas. We have had other issues that have a higher priority than those that projects. So it has not moved much past a few bull sessions and notes on scrap paper. In any case, the Pegasus has the only Colonial Viper production capabilities that we know about that is still in working condition. So until they get back, we are just kicking around ideas and not really working on it that hard."

Bill stopped talking again, and looked over the rim of his glasses at the Earther across from him. "From what I'm getting from your line of thought, are you offering to help us with that project?"

 _"Now that was a good way to put the ball back in their court_ , _"_ thought Adama. As he looked around the table, the looks on the other men's faces led the older Adama to think that they were expecting the exact response he had just given them. _"Frak, I fell into it again. I have to get better at countering them. It must be because I'm getting older. Then again, it might because of the different language we have to deal with."_ These were the rapid fire thoughts that went through Bill's mind at the speed of light.

Kelly was still leaning forward over the low table, and had a smile on his face, one that the Elder Adama was not too sure if it was supposed to be friendly or not. "Let's put that question on the side, for right now. If or when we leave this rock, we can think about adding new classes of weapons into your arsenal. I think we can work out some deals that might address that question with a better focus. What we were thinking about right now is, what we feel needs to be done. It's that most of our combat equipment is supposed to be space rate. At least that is according to the sales literature we have recovered from some of those shipping containers. We say supposed to, because none of us has seen it done before. And we don't know what might come up, if they were in a space combat environment and had to use our weapons to defend the fleet. Also what we would like to know what the cost would be to us to put say five or six of our people, into one of your ongoing Viper and Raptor training classes you have been running?"

Of all the things that might have come up that was not anywhere on the list in Adama's mind. Before he could open his mouth to say a word, he was thinking. _"Now why would they want to send someone to learn how to fly a space fighter like a Viper?"_

Bill felt the corner of one side of his mouth droop a little. "I would have to get back to you on the cost, but maybe that would help everyone with the language problems that are going to come up more often. I can see now why, you're wanting to ramp up your production of armor plates. Flight schools are not cheap, even the boot strapped ones we have set back up to replace our losses. The big question now, is what are you going to do with the pilots after they're trained on Vipers or Raptors?"

Bill wanted to do a little fishing to see what they might be thinking about with this flight school idea. "If they're in my units they fall under my orders and Colonial Laws, even off duty. We had problems that some of the other Colonies had odd laws compared to the rules that the Military was supposed to be following. We learned that there had to be only one set of laws that can be enforced in the military. At least for active duty personnel. reservists would only fall under those laws when they're recalled for a stint of active duty." He was looking at each of the now four individuals from Earth. One at time, with the best 'don't frak with me' look that he could make. It was an impressive look, but his audience was used to that kind of thing and it had no visible effect on them that Adama could see.

It had very little effect on Kelly mentally, much less physically. It did have some effect on the ship's commander. But not like it would have on a person, who had not used that very same look for decades. And he had had to use it against not only humans either. It was more of a score board for Kelly to match against the Colonial's score.

"If anyone joins the Colonial military, then they belong to the Colonial military unit until their tour of duty is over." Kelly had a thin lip line as he continued to speak his mind. "Just like the way it was done back home. What we are thinking regarding those Viper and Raptor pilots, is that it would be nice to have a reusable power projection device that can go farther out than my long ranged missiles or cannons can reach. And we know that those are space rated as well as can operate in a planet's atmosphere. Right now, we don't think most of our warfighting capability will be able to range more than a few tens to hundreds of miles away from our hulls. Even if they work as they are advertised to do in real life. You brought up Viper production capabilities just now. I'm sure you're not surprised that we have been told about that before our first meeting. We think that if we traded for a few of them, we could expect to be able to maintain them out of our own coffers. For now those classes, would fill some of the requirements that we see coming down the line."

Kelly had been voted on to be the main spokesmen, but none of them were sure what would happen next. At least not after this topic had been brought up to the Colonial military commander. Adama, for his part, was not sure what way he was going to go after they dropped that bomb on him. _"Well, that is why I get paid the big cubits."_ He had no idea that he was drumming his fingers on the wooden table top as he mentally looked at the different angles of the idea. He needed to buy some time, and for the second time in this meeting he wished that Roslin was with him today. She would have a better idea of what would happen when the Colonial political leaders heard about this idea. He held up his hands in a 'please wait' gesture that was surprisingly common to both group of humans.

When he was ready, Bill's mind let his mouth work again. And his fingers stopped moving mid drumming. "Okay let's slow this down a little, if you please. I already agreed to give up one nuclear weapon, but that is if you help me make nine of the same weapons for us. It's worth the risk to me. If we don't make the total estimated numbers? I still get the weapons I need, and I can't exactly get them from any frakking place else. Now you're talking about me selling or trading you some Vipers and Raptors after we get you trained up to use those craft. This is a completely different Pyramid game to me. Those craft cost between three and six hundred million cubits each, fresh off the factory lines for the Colonial Fleet buying them in bulk. Even the old museum piece Mark Twos, which we had on my ship, they cost almost a hundred million cubits each. Back when they were new. If you were rebuilding one into a fly worthy condition it could cost a lot more than that."

"We can make a few new Mark Seven Vipers, and the spare parts to support them in a week. If we have the raw material, and we don't need that many replacement parts for the rest of the Viper fleet, we could double the rate of production." Bill made a face and his lips turned into a deep frown. "But any new Raptors? All we have now are all the Raptors we are going to have ever again. I will find it hard to release the few of those craft I have left. After things settle down some, and I have the assets free from other tasks. I'm actually going to go look around what is left of those wrecked Baseships. We know that the Cylons have used captured Colonial craft before. I'm hoping we can luck out and find a few wrecks. We'll need any spare part for those craft I can find under any handy rock."

Kelly made a sour face. Those were all good points, and he had to agree with what the Colonial commander had said. "I understand where you're coming from. After all, it's not like we will be getting any more sets of powered body armor, or any other replacement weapons and parts for that matter. We are in the same boat as you are Admiral." That was a little dig on the Colonials, and Kelly knew it was. The Settlement had given or sold weapons and body armor to the Colonials. Even knowing that they would most likely never be able to get fresh sets to replace what was sold or lost in battle with the Cylons.

The verbal hit was not lost on the Admiral, but he did not react to the point being made against him. Kelly went on talking. Ignoring the barb he had just given to the Colonial. "We have other skills and equipment to offer, besides our warfighting items that you and your people have already seen in use. We have construction equipment, which I doubt you have when you left your home systems." He paused this next bit was going to be a little touchy. "Don't take this the wrong way, Admiral. What we offered earlier to your people, we did it because it was the right thing to do. Now that I have covered my butt politically, how is your President doing after her treatment?" One of the things that had come up before the first year on this planet was over for Kelly and the rest of the people carried by the Lucky Find, had been the issue of doctor-patient confidentiality between one party and a second non family member.

Adama had to fight the urge to hit the man across the table as his first instinct. He had to fight real hard not to, but he did have a few points. The Earthers needed to show that they had medical skills, which his fleet was in very short supply of. Short supply not only in terms of specially trained personnel, but also some very unique medical equipment that these people had access to. That last thought let the older Adama center himself, and calm down at being asked such a personnel question. "She is doing very well thank you. She had completed the final treatments last week. I understand that your people would like to see her every few months, to make sure she remains in remission from the cancer. They said that if it or another one of the same class comes back, the next round of treatments will be easier on her. Since it will not have had as much time to expand into her body unchecked by medication."

Kelly nodded and let out breath he had been holding, with a soft audible sigh. For a few seconds, it looked like the Admiral was going to try to take a swing at him or something. "It is in my experience that Medical people are always in short supply and good ones even more so. We were lucky in that we had a few extra, when we got here. And they have trained a few more of our people while we were in hiding. But it makes the point that we can help in those two areas also. That is until the ratio of healing skills and number of medically trained personnel level off between our people. Or we run out of our advanced medication, the devices break, and cannot be fixed again. With your support ships, I hope that the last condition is not going to happen for a while down the road." Kelly had just let the Colonial know that the Earthers were going to share two new types of knowledge with his people.

Kelly leaned back away from the table, and gave a soft smile. He wanted to give the hint that their people were going to need stuff to fix the Earth made equipment. Most of it had been in use for years now. It would start to wear out even faster with the heavier work load about to be placed on them.

"Now that that one sore spot is cleared up." There was now a twinkle in Kelly's eyes and the tone he had just used had caused Max to roll his eyes. "We have a few other items, which we have not covered in the few trade talks we have had to date. There are some things that you need to know about those twenty armor plates your supply person bought on the market auction a few days ago."

Adama looked around the group, and noticed that they all had knowing smiles, and they did not look mad about the Colonials having bought those plates. The skin on the back of Bill's neck started to itch. This was almost as bad as having to deal with Tom Zarek. Bill could not see any trap, so he went with honesty. "We were told that it was on open sale, and anyone who wanted to bid on them could do so as long as they had the money at the close of bidding. Was there some misunderstanding of some kind in this auction?" Now Bill was sweating on the inside, but he kept his voice calm. He was deciding how hard he was going to fight to keep those armor plates that they needed so bad.

Hugh stepped forward again to a more central spot in the little group of leaders again. He could not tell if the Colonial was stressed or not. He just seemed to be standing there like a human shaped wall made of the best armor plate. "Well, what we need to know from your point of view is what did you think about them? I take it you have noticed that we have not put any more of that stuff on the market for sale after your last high bid. Why do you think that was? You have to have found out that we are making as much armor as we can. And now you know that we are looking to add a third shop to make even more on a daily basis." Hugh had not wanted to stop the sales, but he had been ordered by Max to stop any more public sales until after this meeting.

 _"What was this guy fishing for? Well one way to find out,"_ thought Bill. He quickly pushed away the idea of not telling the whole truth to these people. It seemed like they really wanted to know what he thought about those expensive slabs of flat armor plate. "We tested and then retested, those armor plates on my Flagship. I had my best people doing the evaluations and reviews. They were hands down better than anything I had ever heard about in testing from the R and D labs. Or for that matter even in defense periodicals from before the war started. It's roughly as good as what we put on our latest generation Battlestars like the Pegasus, but we've never been able to make it feasible for infantry or even small craft scale applications. Normally I would ask our only major scientific brain in the fleet, Baltar, if he had heard of anything like them before. But that is not an option at this time." Adama would rather kiss a Cylon's butt, than talk to that person again. He did not doubt that these Earthers knew some of the stories come out of the Refugee camp about him.

Bill let his face slip some, and in doing so. It let the other people in the room know that the Colonial did not know what was going on with this line of questioning. Bill did not notice the slip, and he needed to clear the thoughts out of his head about Baltar, and kept talking. "We tested them side by side with some Raider and Centurion hulks that we on board. It was as good as the Cylons stuff, or even better because it was thinner and massed less for a given area of coverage. Just as you and your people had advertised it would be."

Bill gave a deep frown to the group in the meeting. Then let them know why he had not asked that man. He later would tell Laura that he did not know why he told them about his feelings regarding the man. "I can't get near that frakker, at least until I'm sure I won't choke him to death with my bare hands. And yes, I and my staff have been wondering why you have not put anymore of the armor plates up for sale after the last auction. The betting pool has it, that you're setting it aside to stockpile, or you are using it to replace damaged armor from all the fighting against the Cylons." Bill stopped talking and quickly looked around the table. "So are you going to tell me? So I can close the pool, and make a lot of people very unhappy for the next few weeks?" Bill had not noticed that absence of new sales, until it had been brought up to him by Felix.

Before Bill could say more, a voice brought him back to the meeting. "I have one more question for you Admiral, before we get to that." This came again from Captain Kelly, and he had another sly smile on his face. "Did you notice that no one was bidding against you for those plates? Well a few were trying to get a deal on it at first. But once it went to a certain level, only the other Colonials were bidding against you to get to take them home." There had been eight different Colonial groups that had been identified by Major Weston as wanting to get those plates. This was not going to be told the Admiral. If he wanted to know something like that, he was going to have to have his people dig for it all on their own.

Adama had to send his brain back to three weeks ago for the event these people were so interested in. And yes, Kelly was right about who had been bidding in the small crowd. As each plate was put up for sale, the price was very low to start with. And when it reached certain points the bidders were fewer and fewer, and all Colonials in the end. "Now that you mention it, yes I did notice a few other ship captains bidding. Why was that?" Bill was trying to work the angles and even he was coming up blank, but he could tell that he was still missing something that was possibly very important.

Kelly tried not to smile any bigger than he already was, but he could not help it. "That run was a test production run of one of our machines that had just been repaired. It was not up to spec for what we are used to using, so it was set aside. They have fixed the problems, and we are now using the improved stuff for all of the warmachines that were brought in for repair. We made sure to fix them back up to fully operational status, before we packed them back down again. That did take much of the stock we had on hand. But the rate of returning equipment in need of repair is pretty steady. The bottleneck had been qualified repair teams to do the work to the standard we expect. So yes we have been using a lot of what we had been making to repair battle damage, and replacing our stockpile back to what it was when we got to this planet."

Hugh now jumped in with his own hands behind his back and a seriously look on his face. He was always that way when he was talking about what he called real numbers. Those were normally numbers that started at a million and went a lot higher. "You said that a newly built Mark Seven Viper and Raptors run between 300 and 600 million cubits when you were back on your home planets. How much would it cost to rearmor one of your Battlestars in something that tough, or just normally for that matter? Now I'm not talking about being able to do something like that all at once. Frankly, I don't know even if Northern Gun or the CS produces that much armor in a year. Much less using only the two almost three handmade machines, we have here on this whole planet." He looked around the group again and was trying to read their faces.

Adama had a tight smile and was about to vibrate out of his boots. It was only by some miracle that he was not hyperventilating. "I have no ideahow much it would cost to put a whole armored belt on a Battlestar, and neither would anyone else left alive in the fleet. I think that it would cost maybe in the tens of Billions of cubits to replace the armor belt on a Mercury class Battlestar. I read about it once, which was why they took most of the Old Girls armor off of her when she was on her way to the museum. It was to reuse it on other ships, instead of buying a new stock of the stuff. How would you want to do this? That is if you could make enough armor plate to do the job?" In Bill's mind's eye, he was seeing all of those exposed ribs of his ship. He knew how His old girl should look with all of the armor she was supposed to have on her old hull. Seeing that way her again would be amazing to his old eyes.

Kelly smiled with just a little of his teeth showing as the read the screen before looking back to the Colonial. "Now this is just a rough plan which we have worked on. When we start selling the armor again, you bid on it. But you can only buy up to ninety percent of what is for sale on any given day. That information will be posted at Warehouse One for everyone to know. I know you could use it all, but others need it also. If you buy it all up then there will be issues, down the road. We have seen it happen before. We will be making two grades of armor. The top grade takes longer and uses a lot more resource, but is better. The second grade will be just like what you have bought already, and should be cheaper. What you bid on is of no concern to us." Kelly stopped talking and gave a head to Hugh to finish up with all of the numbers.

Hugh was ready and pulled out a small cut sheet of paper with hand written notes on it. "We will need to have thirty percent of the end bid price to be paid out as is normal for a public auction. The rest of the balance will go into an account which we will draw on to pay for the first batch of pilot trainees from among our people. Then we need to come up with a plan on how to use the funds in those accounts. We were thinking that you come up with a number first for an older Mark II Viper, and then a new built Mark VII Viper and a Raptor. We don't need the numbers now. We can work that out later but I would like it before the next armor sale goes off. When you have some hard numbers to throw at us, please don't be greedy. Because if the price is too high, then we will call the whole deal off."

Adama nodded and pulled out a little paper note book from a jacket pocket and made some notes in. "I think, that would be a good idea." He gave a smile, but he was looking down at this paper note pad and no one could see it that well. _"If I had known what we were going to cover in this meeting, I would have given Starbuck a different task."_ The smile came off of his face as he thought about her, then again maybe not. "Now I have a request, which I was also asked to bring up tonight. It would seem that the available amount of leather is still in short supply. I have been asked to see if you will increase the hunting of the local large sharks to increase the supply of hides in the markets. The leather is needed to start replacing some of the worse worn clothing among my people, and a few other uses in the fleet." Bill did not want to cover how some of it was needed for blankets, beds, and even patching chairs.

This was not the first time the three Earth leaders had heard this particular request. One or the other of the Triumvirates had been getting the same message twice a day, every day for almost a month now from some Colonial who thought he had political power. It was now an official request, and needed to be addressed officially by them. Max took this one to give Kelly a break from the lime light, and the focus of the Colonial Admiral. "Admiral we have taken a lot of larger animals from the local area waters already in a very short amount of time. We have to manage what is taken, so we don't wipe out a part of the local food chain for a short term gain. We are slowly increasing the amount of fish we are harvesting from the sea. The new fishing locations are farther out than we have been using for the last few years. They are in the bay and outside of the bay, and let's not forget that they have to avoid every place we have hidden one of your ships."

Max stopped talking and when Adama did not seem to have a question just yet, he started speaking again. "Before you bring up the need to stockpile food and stuff, we are. Only about seventy-five percent of the food being caught is being sold on the open market. We have been buying it up on the dock, and processing it for long term storage. And by us, I'm talking about the little government here and paid for by taxes from our people. That goes for food as well as the leather that is coming into the dock off of those boats. We have to have jobs for people while we are on the trip coming up. We were thinking, so why not tanning and cloth manufacturing? If this is not a viable plan please let us know! We only have a few people that have those skills to turn items like that into clothing of high quality. We think that it would be another skill that needs to be passed around between our people."

Adama smiled to himself, these people were on the ball. _"They had tried to cover as many bases as they could. Even with the limited knowledge base on space travel, they were very sharp. And I bet that some of the more hide bound of my people will be in for a few rude surprise if they ever underestimated them."_ Bill had already heard people, and had read a few reports. It was about how backward they must be, if they did not have proper Vipers or even know about space travel. "I will pass along that you have started increasing the quota of fish harvesting, but it is expected to take a few weeks for the effect to be felt for the average person. I think we all should keep the fact that you're stockpiling some items quiet for now. I will limit that information to the President and some of her selected staff. I agree about keeping some things around for people to work on while we are travelling. We have found out that when people are bored, they have too much time on their hands to cause trouble. Having something to do, or maybe as important something new to learn will be a good thing." As Bill was talking imagined and replayed in his mind several events that were centered around Tom Zarek while on the run from the Cylons. Now maybe this time the recruiting grounds will not be so fertile for him to pull his crop of troublemakers.

Kelly looked back at Adama and this time his face was blank as a sheet of paper. "That is a good no information answer. Will your people be upset when they find out about the stockpiling of supplies, and that you knew about it?" Kelly wanted to reward the openness the Admiral was showing them. "I let you know that we knew about your people trying to modify a Viper and a Raptor with our weapons tech. I bet you have been wondering what we have been working on in our own back rooms?"

Now Kelly smiled, Adama and had a blank card player's expression on his face wondering what was about to be dropped on his lap. Kelly met it, with his own level gaze. "We've decided to let you know that we've collected a few wrecked Cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders during the conflict with the Cylons. We have been taking them apart to see what makes them tick. We have also even been getting some help from a few of the Cylons POW's we collected along the way. We are not getting help from all of them, only a few which seem to truly want to help us. What they are telling us, is that their jump drives are faster, smaller, use less fuel per jump or at 'idle', and are longer ranged than any of yours on a class for class basis. When things calm down some, would you like to send some of your jump engineering people to be on the research teams we are already running?

Adama could not stop his eyebrows from flying almost off the top of his head, and his voice came out a bit louder than he had wanted it to. "You have working Cylon jumpdrives!" The Colonials had been trying to do the same thing, since Starbuck had brought that one Raider on board during one of her signature displays of derring-do. So far they have not had much luck knowing if one of those Cylon drives was good, much less start working on finding out how exactly the performance was different from one of their own. It would seem that they had some kind of safety system that activated the first time it detects a non Cylon who tries to access it in any way.

"Well that hit a nerve or something." Thought Kelly but this time he kept his face plain to hide some information. "Well that tells me a lot right off of the bat, Admiral. That you're focused in on the jump drives, and not that we have Cylons willing to work with us. We feel the same way, about the project."

Now Adama now made a face, like he had been kicked hard by a Centurion in the old family jewels. "I'm not like a lot of Colonials. As a matter of fact the reason we told Athena her child had died at birth. Was because we did not know what some other frakking crazy person might do to her and the little one. It was not like we could put them under twenty-four hour guard with two or three armed marines." His voice softened, but he kept the same volume. "If you have the chance, could you pass along to Helo and Athena something for me? It is that I will welcome their family back with opened arms, whenever they want."

Bill let his eyes focused against the far wall behind the group of Earthers about head height, and changed the subject a little. "That would give you one qualified pilot each for both a Viper and a Raptor already without the need for any training. Helo was trained as a fully qualified ECO, so he could do double duty in that position. They could help pick who you send to the training schools. They know what to look for in a candidate pilot, and they could even set up some pre-classes. That would set you up, so that you could have lot better prepared student. At lease better prepared than what I can do at the start of the classes."

"We will pass your message along as soon as we are done tonight. I think they well be glad that it came from you. Two groups not getting alone perfectly, but having to work together is not a new problem for the human race. We have some ideas we can talk about later that might smooth some things over. But they will only work if we have trust at our level, at least to start with." Kelly was talking, but the other three men were nodding in agreement at the words that were coming out of his mouth in a steady even tone.

Adama just nodded and checked his notes to be ready for the next topic. The meeting would be going on another hour. Amazingly it only ran a half an hour longer than had been planned for in the first place. But what Bill was looking forward to, was going to be at the very end of the meeting if he had to place a bet. That was the tour of the weapons mounted on each of the ships, and detailed information on their capabilities that he was going to be receiving. The weapons tour was to be followed by a quick meal, before he headed back to his ship sometime around local midnight.


End file.
